The Mystery of Conan Edogawa
by funvince
Summary: Ran Mouri is tired of the lies and evasions. She is determined to get to the truth behind her little house guest once and for all. But is she really prepared for what she may find?
1. Ran Mouri, Tantei san?

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or any of the characters within. They belong to Aoyama Gosho. This work was created sorely for entertainment and not to generate profit of any kind. This disclaimer probably has no legal force, but it seems polite to acknowledge the person who made this story possible.

Source Material: strictly the Anime version. I have watched Conan movies 1-11 and all the available fansubbed episodes on AnimeA (dot) net up into the 400s.

* * *

THE MYSTERY OF CONAN EDOGAWA

A Detective Conan Fanfiction by funvince

* * *

-Chapter 1: Ran Mouri, Tantei-san?-

_Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence._

-Carl Sagan

It was stupid. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. It was downright impossible.

But Ran simply could not stop thinking about it. She pressed her pillow over her face in frustration. She wanted to scream. It was so unfair. Weeks could go by without her spiraling into the insanity that was probably the result of reading too many fantasy mangas, but then something strange would happen or be said that would once again make her think that…

Conan Edogawa, her cute, little 7-year old adopted brother was really…

Shinichi Kudou, high school teen detective. Her childhood friend that she had never been apart from for more than a short period of time.

Ran had told herself so many times that what she was thinking stemmed from heartache. Despite what she told others, she knew that she missed that idiot more than she ever thought possible. It wasn't too surprising that she saw Shinichi everywhere, especially in a little kid who just happened to resemble him so much.

_Yeah, it's just a coincidence_, her inner voice said snidely. _Conan just happens to look like Shinichi, act like Shinichi, have the same blood type, birthday, lack of singing ability, and love of soccer and Sherlock Holmes as Shinichi…_

Ran gave a huge sigh of aggravation then she swung her legs to get out of bed. She obviously wasn't going to get any sleep tonight.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat in her dad's desk chair with a cup of tea in her hand, staring up at the night sky. She thought back to yesterday afternoon and the event that caused her current aggravation. It had been a perfect day for an outing, so Ran had agreed to take Conan and his friends ice-skating.

While she was still lacing her shoes, the children had already gone out on the ice. Ran had just tied the last knot when she heard Ayumi comment to Conan about what a good skater he was.

Conan rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment and replied, "It's no big deal. My dad taught me how to skate in Hawa- _Houston_ back in America. We went to Texas on vacation once!"

"Wow!" Ayumi exclaimed.

Conan had blithely gone on to skate around the rink, leaving Ran once again feeling like the world had slipped out from under her.

Ran was certain that Conan had been about to say 'Hawaii.' That in itself was not a problem. The problem was that Conan had apparently felt a need to lie. But why did he? Conan would have no reason to hide that he had a connection to Hawaii… but _Shinichi_ would. That may have seemed like a tenuous connection to others, but to Ran it was another oddity to add to the mystery that was Conan Edogawa.

Part of her wanted to storm into Conan's room, shake him awake, and force him to confess. Another part reminded her that strategy had never, ever worked. How many times had her 'reasoning' fallen apart leaving her feeling like a fool and probably traumatizing poor Conan?

Ran's s shoulders drooped. She hated feeling like this. She had always thought of herself as a sensible person, but here she was being so silly! Well, maybe she was a silly person. After all, sensible people weren't afraid of ghosts or believed in supernatural stuff, right?

But maybe it was her open-mindedness (Shinichi would probably call it empty-headedness, Ran thought scowling) that enabled her to entertain these notions. Ran was momentarily cheered, but then she sank her head into her arms with a groan.

Who was she kidding? What was that Sherlock Holmes quote that Shinichi loved to say? She could imagine him standing with his hands in his pockets, smirking at her with his arrogant grin, and saying, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

And sadly, it was all too probable that she was simply a moron.

All the evidence and a lifetime of experience in the real world said that she was wrong. Turning into a child was impossible, wasn't it? Continuing to even seriously consider the idea showed how mentally unstable she was. The simplest explanation tends to be the best one, and the simplest explanation was that she had an overactive imagination.

By refusing to accept common sense, she was trading Occam's Razor in for Occam's Kaleidoscope! She was pushing logic and reason out the door just so she could accept the most fantastic, convoluted explanation. Shinichi would probably be disappointed in her for fighting the evidence so strongly.

Ran _knew _all this. She knew all the explanations and the arguments, but despite that, she couldn't help feeling that something didn't fit. Maybe it was stupid of her to put so much stock in such a subjective, irrational process, but Ran believed very strongly in the power of instincts. Her lifetime of training in karate has taught her that instincts existed for a reason. Even Shinichi, master of logic and rationality, had once confided to her that there were many times that he would keep investigating what seemed to be open-and-shut cases based on nothing more than a hunch that there was something that everyone was missing.

But feelings and hunches didn't get criminals arrested or convicted at trial. Hard evidence did.

Ran's eyes suddenly widened in realization. She lifted her head so quickly that she almost knocked her tea over. Why had this never occurred to her? She had been going about this all wrong this entire time!

With this new insight, her mind raced down a well-treaded path of old memories and noting where she had gone wrong.

The first time she had suspected Conan of being Shinichi was during the case in which a father who had lost his son during a surgery attempted to get revenge by going after the son of that surgeon.

She could remember her thoughts at the time.

_His actions are plain too weird for a plain old elementary school kid…_

_It's almost as if Shinichi was talking…_

_That day that Shinichi disappeared… Conan-kun appeared as if they had switched places…_

_Maybe… maybe this kid is really Shinichi?_

Her suspicions had been sparked when Conan had deduced that her dad's client was a surgeon based on nothing more than the marks on his index fingers, and when she had noticed him directing her dad toward his conclusions with his pointed questions and comments. He was practically pulling strings! She had started watching him closely after that, and it became harder and harder to brush off his similarities to Shinichi as mere coincidence.

"_Did you discover something again, Conan?" Ran asked sweetly when she discovered the little boy poring over the hospital's medical records._

_Not seeming to suspect anything, Conan launched into an explanation of what he found. His voice had deepened and he was no longer acting like a mere child. He began pacing back and forth and appeared to have forgotten that Ran was still in the room. _

_Ran listened carefully then when he had finished, she knelt down to match his height and said with a smile, "If you can deduce it that far, then that's very good. That's clever… that's clever, __**Shinichi**__!"_

_Conan looked embarrassed and tried to laugh off the praise. He replied, "Yeah, well, it's nothing…"_

_Ran watched Conan's eyes widen in horror when he realized that he had responded to the wrong name._

Even then, Ran couldn't help but doubt herself. The real world wasn't a science fiction movie, after all. She needed more, so she decided to set up a trap.

_As Ran was cleaning up the office after the case, she idly commented, "Oh yeah. Kishida-sensei, the gym teacher, is getting married."_

"_Really? That gorilla?" Conan asked in a bored tone as he read his book._

_Ran stared at him. Her mind was frozen with shock. _

"_How do you know about my high school teacher?" Ran asked with an edge in her voice._

_Conan stammered, "Oh, umm, you were saying it all the time! Gorilla this, gorilla that…"_

_Ran glared down at the boy, her face red with anger. "Don't lie! I thought it was weird. You're Shinichi, aren't you?"_

_Conan was sweating heavily. "Uh, you see…"_

_Ran was fed up with the stalling tactics. "Admit it! Shinichi!"_

Then the phone rang, and Shinichi had been on the line. Her certainty shattered, and her suspicions vanished like alcohol around her father.

That should have been the end of it. But then, one day, she took the glasses off a sleeping Conan and had her breath taken away by the sight of a face that she hadn't seen in ten years. She mulled over that until later that evening when she couldn't keep silent any longer.

"_You're Shinichi, aren't you?"_

_Conan backed away from her in shock. "What are you saying? How can I be Shinichi-niichan?"_

_Ran was not going to back down this time. "No! There's no mistaking it! That deductive reasoning, the decisive action, and even the poor knowledge of music are exactly the same!"_

"_But look carefully! I'm just a kid!" Conan cried, sounding like he feared for her sanity. _

_This tone naturally infuriated her. She put her hands on her hips and spat, "I bet you just drank some strange medicine Doctor Agasa made! Don't play dumb with me now. There's so much I want to tell you. So much!"_

_Conan's eyes darted left and right, "Do you have any proof? Don't say weird things without any proof!"_

_Ran smirked. "Right here. The proof is right here." She snatched the glasses off his face and tossed them behind her. "I've never seen anyone that looks so much alike!"_

"_Like I said…"_

"_You'd better confess, Shinichi!"_

Somehow, Conan managed to convince her that she was talking nonsense. And _that_ was the heart of the problem. If it had been Shinichi in her place (she ignored the paradox of Shinichi trying to prove Conan was himself), he wouldn't give up just because of a few roadblocks. In fact, he'd have solid evidence backing his every deduction to confidently wave away any objections. He wouldn't hesitate simply because what he was proposing seemed bizarre.

Confronting a genius without anything better than circumstantial proof was pure folly. Wasn't one definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Instead of trying to badger the truth out of Conan like an officer interrogating a suspect, she should have been trying to do this like a _detective_.

She had been going straight to the accusation and skipping the denouement and the presenting of evidence. What incentive was there for a confession? Clearly their status as childhood friends wasn't enough to get Conan to spill the beans, so it was time to try something different.

Ran told herself that she had to be careful not to go overboard. She had to be objective about this. She would investigate and find out the truth whatever that may be. It could very well turn out that Conan was just what he appeared to be, a sweet, brave, precocious and utterly reckless child.

She had no idea whether or not she wanted that to be true.

* * *

**NOTES:**

Most fanfictions have Conan or someone else telling Ran the truth. I enjoy these, but I think Ran should get the satisfaction of figuring out the truth _definitively_ for herself at least once. She's solved a few mysteries in the series so she's clearly capable, and if it hadn't been for Conan's ingenuity and good luck, she would have solved the Mystery of Conan Edogawa a long time ago.

When I assert a DC fact such as, for example, Ran's favorite color is red (Movie 1: The Timed Skyscraper), I like to go check and make sure that it actually exists in anime canon. That doesn't mean I won't make stuff up at times, but I will try to make sure it doesn't contradict anything that Aoyama Gosho or the people involved with the Detective Conan anime have written.

I'm only human though and I haven't seen every episode (mostly due to the fact that not all episodes have been translated), so if you believe that I have erred somewhere, feel free to tell me. I'm also interested in hearing how the anime is different from the manga, which I haven't read yet because I don't have time, so tell me about that too if you like. I always like learning new things.

--Shinichi, Conan, and Ran have the same blood type (Episode 189)

--Shinichi and Conan share the same birthday, May 4th (Movie 3: Last Wizard of the Century)

--Ran first suspects Conan of being Shinichi (Episode 7)

--Ran takes off Conan's glasses and sees his similarity to a childhood picture of Shinichi (Episode 96)


	2. Secrets and Lies

-Chapter 2: Secrets and Lies-

_It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important._

--Sherlock Holmes

Ran yawned widely.

"Are you okay, Ran-neechan?"

Ran looked down at Conan who was staring up at her with his bright blue eyes, a concerned expression on his cute, little face. Looking at him, no one could ever think of him as anything other than a 7-year old boy.

"I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I'm just a little tired," Ran replied. She smiled at Conan. "I'm going to make pancakes for breakfast today. Would you like that?"

"Pancakes? Yay!" Conan cheered as he dashed into the kitchen.

In the light of day, her nightly musings suddenly seemed foolish. Shinichi would have to be the greatest actor in the world to spend every waking moment pretending to be an ordinary elementary school student. Would a grown man and overly prideful person like Shinichi really tolerate the indignity of being treated like an ignorant kid and a nuisance by people like her father? Of being babied and fussed over by her? He couldn't even reach the top of a counter at his size!

This agonizing was counterproductive. She had already made her decision, and there was no point in second-guessing herself now. Ran pushed her doubts aside and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

"Would you like to lick the spoon?" Ran asked after she had finished mixing the batter. She knelt down until the bottom of her apron was touching the ground. It was one of those 'Kiss the Cook' aprons that her dad had brought for her mom as a joke a long time ago.

"Sure!" Conan said happily. He reached out to grab the wooden spoon.

"Here you- Oh no!"

The side of Conan's face and glasses were now smeared with batter.

"I'm so sorry, Conan-kun! Let me clean those for you," Ran said extending her hand.

Conan immediately jumped away from her, but Ran had expected this reaction and the boy was no match for her well-honed reflexes.

Ran quickly went over to the sink and started rinsing the glasses. She turned her head to look at Conan who was staring at her with a worried expression. She smiled reassuringly at him. "Don't worry, Conan. I'll be careful. I know how important these glasses are to you."

Ran put a finger to her chin in thought. "Oh, that reminds me. When was the last time that you went to see an eye doctor? It's important to keep your prescription updated. Maybe I should schedule an appointment for you."

"You don't have to do that, Ran-neechan!" Conan shouted. His eyes flitted left and right as if he was rapidly thinking. He said, "I don't need new ones. My parents got me new glasses right before I came to live with you!"

Ran gave him an inquiring glance then she asked, "Don't you think the frames are too big for your face though?"

"I like them," Conan announced, crossing his arms with a stubborn look on his face.

"If you say so," Ran replied, shrugging.

After turning off the faucet, Ran wiped the glasses on her apron and gave them back to Conan. He took them from her with a relieved expression. She smiled gently at him. "Go wash up real quick and then wake dad for me, okay?"

"Okay!" Conan agreed before he dashed out of the kitchen.

She waited a moment before dropping the smile from her face. She wanted to sag to the floor in weariness, but settled for leaning against the counter. Her heart was beating so loudly that she was amazed that Conan couldn't hear it.

_Shinichi…_

Ran had deliberately wiped the lenses using the part of her apron that had the word 'Cook' on it. There hadn't been more than a second's worth of time before the glasses made contact with the apron and was covered up from view by cloth, but that had been more than enough time for her to take a glimpse through the lenses and notice that _the letters hadn't changed size._

The lenses were fake. There was no other explanation. Ran wanted to cry. How could she face Conan now? She felt like she had lost something precious. Maybe this was the reason that she had never thought to check the glasses during all the times she accused Conan of being Shinichi.

Now she knew why Conan wore his glasses all the time even when he was sleeping or bathing. She had been expecting to discover something like this, but expecting and seeing were two very different things. Even during the times that she wished that Conan really was Shinichi, there had been a very significant part of her that had hoped that she was wrong. That hope was gone.

No, she was jumping ahead of herself again. Yes, the glasses were fake. She finally had an irrefutable piece of evidence that showed that there was something worth investigating, but it wasn't enough.

If she tried confronting Conan now as she usually did when she thought she had found a 'smoking gun,' she knew that Conan would simply contrive some ridiculous explanation that she'd be forced to accept because it'd still be more probable than a grown man shrinking into a child. Maybe he wore fake glasses simply because he thought they made him look smarter or some other equally absurd reason.

Ran didn't think Conan had noticed what she'd done. And even if he had, what could he do that wouldn't further arouse her suspicions? And if she kept investigating it was inevitable that he would eventually uncover what she was doing.

She supposed she could have just checked out his glasses earlier that morning while he was still sleeping, but she had to know if she could look directly into Conan's eyes and lie to him. She knew now that she could do this. Deceit was not something that came naturally to her, but her characteristic straight-forwardness would not help her in this.

Ran knew that she was nowhere near the end of her journey. There were still too many pieces to this puzzle that she didn't have. But one thing had been accomplished. Ran had been wavering, but she was now filled with the resolve to see this through to the end. There would be no turning back now.

But she still felt some hesitation. If she continued, she'd have to ruthlessly dig through Conan's life. This wouldn't be just another episode of Ran yelling at Conan to confess like some crazy woman like all the other times. She risked permanently alienating the boy if he found out what she was doing and it turned out she was wrong. Was the truth really worth that?

Ran stared at her reflection in the toaster. What would Shinichi do? The answer was obvious. The truth was always worth knowing no matter what the cost.

* * *

"Miss Mouri? Miss Mouri!"

"Huh? I mean, yes, sensei!" Ran said, sitting up straighter when she realized that her math teacher was giving her a hard stare. She had the sinking feeling that the man had been calling her name for awhile now. The other students snickered at her obvious inattention causing Ran to blush a little.

"I know that you students don't consider math to be the most exciting of subjects, but I'd appreciate it if your heads remained in the classroom and out of the clouds!"

Ran was extremely grateful that the lunch bell rang at that moment.

"I'm really sorry, sensei. It won't happen again!" Ran said as she rapidly packed up her books and rushed out of the room. A girl with short, brown hair followed after her.

"Geez, Ran! Didn't you feel me poking you in the ribs?" Sonoko complained as the two girls headed outside to find a spot to eat lunch.

"Sorry. Thanks for trying though."

Sonoko looked at her slyly. She said, "I saw you staring at Shinichi's old seat again. Were you thinking about our missing idiot detective again?"

"I just had a lot on my mind," Ran explained. She hoped that Sonoko would drop the matter, but judging by the annoyingly familiar look her face, she knew that was not going to happen.

Sonoko clasped her hands together and fluttered her eyes rapidly. "Oh, Shinichi! I wish you were here to whisk me away from this life of tedium and differential equations!"

Ran didn't give the usual reaction to her best friend's antics. Instead, she sat down on a bench near the school's baseball field and asked, "Do you think it's possible to know someone your entire life yet not really know anything about them at all?"

"Aren't we in a serious mood today," Sonoko replied lightly. She joined Ran on the bench and asked, "What brought this on?"

Ran knew she couldn't tell the other girl what she was investigating, but she had to talk to somebody. So she started talking about the one person who was always on her mind in one form or another.

"Sometimes, I think Shinichi and I are drifting apart. He doesn't call often, and whenever he does, I do most of the talking. He's always so close-lipped about everything, even the things that can't possibly have any relationship to his case. We'll talk about what's going on in my life and current news and sports events, but he never talks about himself. Not what his books he's read or even if he's made any friends. It's like his life stopped after that day we went to Tropical Land."

And now she possibly knew why. Blinking back tears, Ran said, "I think he's keeping a secret from me."

Sonoko looked aghast. "You don't mean…"

"No, nothing like that!" Ran cried. She felt embarrassed thinking of a time she thought Shinichi had disappeared to be with another woman. But he had disappeared so suddenly, and there had never been a case that had stumped him for so long.

"It's just… I hate the idea that he's lying to me. We've always told each other everything. I don't understand why he would hide things from me now."

"Ran…"

Ran fumbled for her handkerchief and dapped at her eyes. "Look at me, getting all sad over that idiot. I don't know why I even bother getting all worked-"

"Maybe he has a good reason?"

"What?" Ran asked, turning to her friend in surprise.

Sonoko squirmed uncomfortably at the attention. She glanced down at her crossed arms and said, "I said, maybe he has a good reason. I know I always rag on Shinichi, but he's a good guy. You better not tell him I said that though! His head's freakishly large as it is."

The short-haired girl reached over and pulled Ran into a hug. She continued, "I really don't think he'd lie to you if he didn't think it was important. You know how guys are. He probably thinks he's protecting you with his caveman act. So please cheer up."

"Thank you, Sonoko," Ran said softly, returning the hug. After a moment, she pulled away and gave the other girl a bright smile. "If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone for a bit. I'm fine, really. I just need to think."

It took some convincing, but Ran was soon alone with her thoughts. Sonoko's words had struck a chord in her. Ran had been so busy moping over the possibility of Shinichi lying to her that she hadn't even thought to ask _why_.

Why would the so-called savior of the police force turn against his principles of honesty and integrity and lie to her every single day? It was hard to imagine. What would be the point? What would motivate such a person to lie?

Means, motive, and opportunity. If she wanted to prove that Conan and Shinichi were the same person, then she'd have to find the holes in their stories and hope that would lead her to the most complex yet simplest of questions: How and why?

The first was beyond her grasp at the moment, but the second question was more pertinent to her. Why? Why would Shinichi lie to her like this? During one of the times she had confronted Conan, she told him she suspected that he had drunk one of Professor Agasa's strange medicines and that was why he was a child.

There were numerous problems with that theory, of course. First, Shinichi was not stupid enough to just drink strange chemicals lying around, and she doubted that Agasa was callous enough to trick or cajole him into doing so. Second, if this was just the result of one of the professor's experiments gone wrong, why would Shinichi lie to her? She could understand him doing so if it was just a temporary condition but it had been _months_. There was no justification short of life and death…

Ran paused in thought. She had never considered that maybe Conan's reason for lying to her was because the truth was _dangerous_. So dangerous that Conan went to great lengths to keep her from prying or even suspecting that there was anything wrong at all. If that was the case, then shouldn't she trust that he knew what he was doing and leave well enough alone?

On the other hand, if he didn't want her involved then he had some nerve living with her and her father! And it wasn't like she hadn't faced danger before. In all the murder, kidnapping, and bomb cases she'd been involved with, she was surprised that she hadn't ended up in the morgue yet!

It was probably typical macho crap about wanting to protect her. That would be so like him. But the problem was that didn't mean he was wrong. The thought disquieted her. What could be so dangerous that Shinichi couldn't even confide in his oldest and closest friend?

But she wanted to know. She didn't care how dangerous it was. It was one thing to be totally ignorant of something. In a case like that, she wouldn't even know what she was missing. But to stand on the cusp of understanding like the Greek figure Tantalus thirsting and straining to reach the fruit just barely out of his reach…

It was the worst feeling in the world.

Shinichi had once told her about how Sherlock Holmes pretended to be dead for three years. He hadn't even told his closest friend, Doctor Watson. Ran didn't doubt that one of Holmes's reasons was to protect his partner nor did she doubt that his concern for his friend was anything but sincere. Yet there was one line that Shinichi had quoted to her that had always stuck with her:

_Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret._

Watson's reaction to these words was not known, but Ran suspected that it didn't differ much from her own. Was this how the good doctor had felt when he discovered that the man he respected most in the world apparently didn't hold him in the same regard? It didn't matter if Shinichi had the best intentions in the world. The fact was that he didn't trust her enough to even keep a secret.

Ran finally let the tears that she'd been holding back fall.

**NOTES:**

I hate making Shinichi look bad, but I really want to explore his reasons for hiding his identity from Ran. I don't want to diminish the sacrifice he is making because I'm sure he knows very well that he risks losing Ran's friendship if the truth is revealed. But I can't help feeling that his subterfuge is insulting in many ways.

Agasa, Ai, Shinichi, and Heiji all seem to think that if Ran finds out the secret then it would only be a matter of time before the Black Organization tracked them down and slaughtered them all. This would seem to imply that this would result because of _Ran_. How insulting is that? I can understand if they feel that Ran is not good at lying just as I understand why Holmes deceives Watson from time to time, but that doesn't mean I can't feel peeved on behalf of the characters being deceived.

I'm sure Shinichi doesn't consciously think that Ran will lead to his downfall even if he constantly underestimates her. I'm sure that if he had his way neither Heiji nor his parents would know that he turned into a child. He especially wouldn't want Kaitou Kid to know! But it's not surprising that Ran would feel that he's looking down on her. I'm not saying she's right. I'm sure Shinichi has the most noble of intentions, but would Ran see it that way?

--The Holmes quote at the end was taken from "The Adventure of the Empty House."

--Episode 10: Ran worries that Shinichi might have run off with another girl.

--Episode 96 references: Ran comments to Conan about how he wears his glasses everywhere. Later, when she confronts him, she accuses him of taking one of Agasa's chemical concoctions to turn into a kid. A surprised Conan mentally notes that Ran's guess is extremely close.


	3. The Detective and the Professor

Thank to you to all my readers for your kind comments

Thank to you to all my readers for your kind comments. And a special thank you to reviewer Felon of Silence for informing me that there is a site for watching streaming video of Detective Conan at detectiveconan (dot) us.

THE MYSTERY OF CONAN EDOGAWA

A Detective Conan Fanfiction by funvince

-Chapter 3: The Detective and the Professor-

_If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain._

--Adlai Stevenson

Ran stared at the nameplate that bored the characters for 'Kudou.' How many times had she gone past this house wondering if Shinichi had finally come home? But today she came here not to search for the elusive boy but to find solace for her wounded feelings.

She had spent the rest of her school day in a daze despite Sonoko's entreaties to cheer up. Ran felt bad about that, but she simply didn't have the energy to fake a smile. She had gone on this crusade anxious to learn the truth, but she had not really considered the consequences that could follow. She had worried about hurting her relationship with Conan but she hadn't thought about the harm that she would suffer from her prying.

If Conan really was Shinichi, what then? What came after that? Could she forgive him? Could she really just ignore all the deception and manipulation? But she could not remember a time before Shinichi was in her life. Could she really throw all that away? Ran didn't know the answers to these questions, but she knew that she would eventually have to answer them.

It was said that ignorance was bliss. That kind of statement was usually scoffed at as cowardice. Yet wasn't there a hint of truth in that tired cliché?

Things were never going to be the same.

Ran looked at her watch. She couldn't spend all afternoon moping like this. Conan and her dad would start worrying about her if she was out too long without calling them.

Ran suddenly realized something, and she couldn't but smile. It was odd and very ironic, but she couldn't stop thinking of Shinichi and Conan as different people. Was it just because she didn't have any proof or was it because while she could imagine herself utterly furious at Shinichi she couldn't see herself bearing a grudge against Conan?

She took in a huge breath then slowly released it, clearing her mind. One project at a time, she reminded herself. She had to prove that she was right before worrying about the aftermath. She would handle it when the time came. Emotions had to be put aside when it came to detective work.

Her investigation was actually going nicely. She had found grounds for suspicion and even came up with a possible motive. It was only going to get harder though. Shinichi was often credited with solving impossible crimes, but what she was investigating was supposedly _really_ impossible. How could an amateur like her hope to get anywhere?

The only way to find out was to try. In principle, every criminal investigation had a few basic steps. A detective doesn't have to know from the beginning how a crime was committed. He just has to determine who is the most suspicious, and that is done by breaking down the alibis of those who have them and paying close attention to those who don't.

At first glance, it seemed Shinichi's alibi was rock-solid. Ran smirked. Having hung around Shinichi all these years, she knew a good alibi proved nothing. She'd just have to work harder at gathering evidence.

When gathering evidence, one had to know where to look. Knowing where to look usually began by asking questions of those who were connected to the case in some way.

It was time to start interviewing witnesses.

A short walk later, Ran was pressing the doorbell of the house next door. The door opened to reveal a surprised-looking Agasa.

Ran gave a small bow in greeting. "Good afternoon, Professor. I was in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by. I'm sorry for intruding on you."

"Not at all," Agasa replied, "You're always welcome to stop by, Ran-kun. Please come in."

"Is Ai-chan home?" Ran asked as she followed Agasa toward the living area.

"No, she and the other children went to the park to play softball," Agasa relied before he sat down on a well-worn armchair. He then put a hand to his forehead in realization. "Forgive me, Ran-kun. Where are my manners? Let me get us some tea."

"That's quite alright, Professor," Ran said, holding up a hand to stop the older man from getting up. "I can't stay for very long. I just wanted to thank you for always taking the time to take care of Conan and his friends. I know that they look up to you like a grandfather."

Agasa laughed loudly as he sank back into his chair. He said, "Then it is I who should be thanking you! You and your father did not have to take in one of my distant relatives and care for him all these months. I enjoy spending time with the children and I hated having to impose on you, but my old bones can't keep up with the energy that only the young possess."

Ran cocked her head and her brow furrowed in confusion. "But aren't you taking care of Ai-chan?"

Agasa's eyebrows rose as a look of surprise flashed across his face. He rubbed the back of his head in apparent discomfort. "Well, you must have noticed that Ai-kun is not like most children. She's quieter and much different from Conan. She's much easier to take care of."

"She is very mature for her age," Ran agreed. She gave him a teasing smile. "But I have to say that it looks like that she's the one taking care of you."

Agasa grinned widely. "And I'm very grateful for her help. My stomach may not agree with me though." He patted his rotund belly in emphasis.

Ran gave a small giggle at the reference to the professor's forced diet. She then said, "That wasn't the only reason I've came over though. I wanted to know if you had heard from Shinichi lately."

"I can't say that I have," Agasa said, scratching his head in thought. "Didn't he give you his cell phone number? Are you having trouble reaching him?"

"No, nothing like that," Ran replied. "So you're sure you haven't spoken to him recently?"

"I'm sure. What's this about, Ran-kun?"

Though Ran was smiling, she was squirming on the inside. This was going to be the tricky part. She said, "I know that you've been taking care of Shinichi's mail while he's been gone. That was how he received the sweater that I made for him, right? I was thinking that it was unfair of him to push his affairs on you when you're so busy with your inventions. So I asked him if I could take over forwarding his mail to him and he said okay."

"He said that?" Agasa asked slowly, looking at Ran with an unreadable expression.

"Yes, he did," Ran replied easily. "I just need the address that you've been sending his stuff to so that I can get started."

The professor looked flustered. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Ran-kun, but it'd be better to leave things as they are. I already have a system set up for organizing and sending, and it just makes more sense for me to take care of the mail because his mailbox is right next to mine. There's no need for you to go to so much trouble."

"I understand that this is sudden, but I really want to do this." Ran looked down at her folded hands. "I think that I would feel closer to him if I did this. I know it's silly…"

Agasa looked very uncomfortable. Ran could tell that the older man was wavering, but then a look of firm resolve came over his face. He replied, "I really should talk to Shinichi about this first."

"Why? I didn't think this would be such a big deal. It's not like you'd be telling me where he is. He's so secretive these days that he probably has a post office box or something." Ran's eyes narrowed. "Or could it be that you don't have an address that you can give me? Because you haven't been forwarding anything at all?"

By the look in the professor's eyes, she knew that she was correct. Ran wanted to feel triumphant, but all she felt was sadness. Another person was lying to her. She had hoped that Agasa was not part of this as he was like a grandfather to her, but it only made sense that he would be. If Shinichi really had turned into a child, who would he turn to if not his friend the scientist and inventor? But it still hurt.

"You're right," Agasa admitted. Ran stared at him with hope and amazement until he continued, "I haven't been sending any mail to Shinichi. I've just been telling him over the phone if he received anything important. I'm sure you must have misunderstood what he told you. Just let me call him and ask-"

"You just said that you had a system!"

Agasa looked away from her. "It was horrible of me to lie, I know. I didn't want to disappoint you. I know how excited you were when you gave me that sweater to send to Shinichi. He and I thought it would be better to pretend that he had received-"

Ran was usually an even-tempered girl, but this was too much for her. "Stop it! I don't want to hear it. Please… just stop."

Ran clenched her fists tightly and tried not to cry. She should have known better. There was no way it would have been this easy. He wasn't just going to break down and confess. She thought of demanding to see this mail that he supposedly still possessed, but the professor was no dummy. It was pointless to continue the subterfuge.

Agasa didn't look any better than she probably did. He looked worn-out and miserable. Ran felt sorry for him, but she couldn't allow that to dissuade her. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do for her next move.

"Shinichi didn't call you, did he?"

Ran looked up and saw the older man staring at her with a gentle look in his eyes. She glanced down at the table, feeling too guilty to look at him. "I'm sorry for trying to trick you, professor, but I couldn't think of any other way to find out what I needed to know."

She heard Agasa sigh and then there was a long silence. Before the silence became too uncomfortable, the older man got to his feet and went into the kitchen. Minutes later, he returned carrying a tray that had two steaming cups and a teapot on top of it.

Ran quietly picked up her teacup though she did not drink from it but merely allowed it to sit on her lap. She stared down into the murky liquid as if hoping that inspiration would strike her.

Agasa regarded her for a moment then he said, "I think we should stop dancing around the elephant in the room. I think we both know why you're here."

The implied invitation to spill was obvious. Ran squirmed in her seat out of embarrassment. It was one thing to entertain crazy notions but to actually say it _out loud_…

She covered her eyes and blurted, "I think Conan is really Shinichi." She then peeked between her fingers for the professor's reaction.

Agasa simply looked at her with a solemn expression. "Conan has told me of the times that you've accused him of being Shinichi. I've known you for many years, Ran-kun, and you're not one to have wild flights of fancy. You obviously feel that you have good reasons for what you believe. I won't insult you by trying to discourage you."

Agasa picked up his teacup and took a sip from it, obviously trying to gather his thoughts. He said, "Let's say for the sake of argument that your theory was correct. Then you understand that he would have reasons for why he couldn't tell you. If the boy cares about you as much as I think he does, then he would not do such a thing lightly."

Ran could feel tears form behind her eyes, and she blinked them back. She had always known that Shinichi cared, but to hear someone else acknowledge that made it more real somehow.

She composed herself and replied, "I understand his reasons. He may even be right. But it is my life and it is my choice if I wish to find out what is going on. I do not want to wake up one day to discover that Shinichi is dead and that Conan has disappeared because I allowed myself to stay ignorant."

"Have you ever considered that knowing too much might, heaven forbid, lead to that?" Agasa looked startled at the words that came out of his mouth.

"That is a low blow, professor," Ran said softly. His words stung not only because he had hit upon her greatest fear but because there was an edge of truth in them. If Conan really was Shinichi, then she would want to be involved with whatever he was dealing with. But would she be a help or a hindrance?

She continued, "I would like to think that Shinichi is intelligent enough that he'd manage to survive even if I got in his way because of this."

"Ran-kun, I didn't mean to imply…"

"Yes, you did," Ran interjected. "But I know you didn't mean to hurt me. You haven't said anything that I haven't already thought of. I know that what I'm doing is a huge risk, but I _have_ to do this. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. If this is something that you feel you must do, then I will not stop you. I hope that you are satisfied with whatever answer you find."

"Thank you." Ran replied. Then she smiled wryly. "The organization that's after Shinichi must be something if he's so scared of it."

She had never seen someone turn so pale so quickly. Agasa was actually trembling when he stuttered, "Wh-why do you say that?"

That was an interesting reaction, to say the least. What was so shocking about what she just said? Ran weighed the pros and cons of pretending that she knew more than she did, but she decided that she had enough deception for one day. And bluffing was never her strong point.

"I thought it was obvious," Ran replied. "If Shinichi was lying to protect me, then it's because of something big. Something that I couldn't handle on my own and that he couldn't go to the police about. So this threat can't be just be one person or small group. It'd have to be like the mafia or the yazuka."

Agasa shook his head. "Ran-kun, I know I said that I wouldn't question you, but…"

"I know, I know. It's like a bad movie plot or conspiracy theory." Ran sighed. "But it's the only thing that makes sense."

She noticed that the inventor was once again avoiding her eyes. She pretended not to notice. She got to her feet and smiled kindly at her host. "I really have to get home and start dinner. I'm sorry for making you listen to my crazy ramblings."

Agasa hurriedly stood up and escorted her to the door. "Nonsense. I am always happy to speak with you. And you were certainly not rambling, dear."

Ran put her hand on the doorknob then stopped as a thought occurred to her.

"Can you do one thing for me? Don't tell Shinichi about this." Ran paused. "Or Conan."

She walked briskly out the door without even waiting for an answer. It was unforgivably rude and even childish of her, but she simply couldn't bear the thought that the professor might lie to her again. If he intended to tell Shinichi then it didn't matter what he said to her.

Ran bit her lip. The worst part of this whole thing was that this probably wasn't going to be the first time her trust in her friends was shaken. How many people knew? Was she the only one who didn't? Was she that untrustworthy of knowing Shinichi's secret?

_If the boy cares about you as much as I think he does, then he would not do such a thing lightly._

"I'm sure you care, Shinichi, but you sure have a funny way of showing it," Ran said to herself softly as she set off for home.

If there was one thing she'd learned today, it was that she still had a long way to go in becoming a detective. What had she expected to get out of professor Agasa anyway? She supposed she had hoped that it would turn out that the old scientist knew nothing about Shinichi's transformation, and he would be willing to become her ally.

Ran knew her limitations. She had no formal training in observation and deduction, and she was certainly not intelligent enough to beat Shinichi at his own game. She needed help, and she had naively hoped that Agasa would provide that assistance, but she supposed that she was on her own.

Or was she? Wasn't there still someone she could turn to? Ran pondered that thought and smiled. It had been awhile since she had gone shopping after all.


	4. Devil's Advocate

-Chapter 4: Devil's Advocate-

_The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable._

--Paul Broca

Ran noticed that Conan had been watching her more carefully over the past few days. It was nothing overly overt, but he had been spending more time in her presence lately. And it may have been her imagination, but the boy seemed to be acting even more childish than usual ever since she had gone to visit professor Agasa.

That could mean that the professor had ultimately decided to give her away, but she hoped that wasn't the case. It was just as likely that Conan had simply noticed her acting strangely. His eye for catching out-of-place details was not something she took lightly. Either way, Ran had to now proceed on the assumption that Conan knew what she was doing.

This actually made matters considerably easier for her. She had hesitated on moving forward in her investigation out of fear of arousing Conan's suspicion, but now she didn't have to care! It was not actually that simple, of course. If Conan really was Shinichi, she may have just started a war that she could not possibly win. Waiting for the other shoe to drop was not going to help her stress levels.

Ran sighed. Nothing was ever easy.

"What's wrong, Ran-chan?"

Ran looked up to see the brunette she'd been waiting on the train platform for. "Kazuha-chan!"

The two girls hugged. Because of the distance between Osaka and Tokyo it wasn't very often that Ran could see her friend, but they tried to meet up at least once a month.

"Oi! Don't forget about me!"

"Ahou! Can't you see you're ruining a moment?" Kazuha snapped at her baseball cap-wearing companion.

"Hattori-kun, it's good to see you again," Ran said warmly.

Heiji grinned and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. "Same here, nee-chan. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Since we've seen you and the runt." He looked around. "Speaking of which, where's Kudou-kun anyway?"

Ran stiffened.

Kazuha looked around. "Yeah, I was surprised to not see him."

Why had she never noticed before? Ran forced herself to relax and replied, "Oh, there's a new Kamen Rider play out at the park that Conan and his friends have gone to watch."

Heiji snickered. "I bet Kudou-kun's going to _love_ that!"

There it was again. Ran casually asked, "Why do you call Conan Kudou-kun anyway?"

Kazuha stared at her childhood friend quizzically. "I've always wondered about that too."

"Wh-what's the big deal? It doesn't take a detective to figure out that those two are eerily similar!" Heiji laughed nervously.

Ran smiled a bit sadly. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

"Did you just call Ran-chan stupid?" Kazuha demanded.

"What the hell? How did you get _that _out of what I said?" Heiji shouted.

Ran just allowed the sound of her friends bickering wash over her as she thought. Heiji was right. He may have met Shinichi only a few times and for only a few minutes most of those times, but that was enough to have a basis for a comparison to Conan.

But why had she never wondered before? It wasn't the first or even the tenth time she'd heard Heiji's 'nickname' for Conan, but she had never even given it a second thought. Shinichi had once told her that most people never really paid attention to their surroundings, and that there was a difference between sensing something and consciously being aware of it.

But so what? It would be quite a leap to conclude that because Heiji called Conan by Shinichi's last name that he must be involved with the big secret. Her instincts, however, told her that the Osakan detective knew more than he was letting on. But reason told her that it was only natural to see a resemblance between a child detective and his teenage counterpart.

Yet was it more than simply spotting a resemblance? Her breath caught as dozens of disjointed conversations and images flashed through her head. Heiji was always taking Conan along on investigations and discussing matters like equals with him when they were too involved in gathering evidence to realize they were acting strangely. It was more than simply a master talking to his apprentice. Hypercompetitive Heiji seemingly had no problems deferring to the deductions of a child.

That was not all. Heiji was always worrying about Conan and jumping in with bizarre excuses to explain Conan's reckless behavior. Heiji had pretended to be Shinichi on at least two separate occasions…(1)

"Nee-chan? Are you okay? Hello?"

Every bit on its own didn't mean anything but when combined together...

Ran felt like she had gone ten rounds with a karate opponent. Was this how Shinichi felt when a piece of the puzzle snapped into place? It was quite a rush. She was beginning to see why Shinichi loved solving mysteries so much.

She had everything she needed to complete the picture but had never taken the time to arrange the pieces together. Maybe if she hadn't spent the last few days lost in paranoid musings she still wouldn't have connected the dots. But now that she had it was so blindingly obvious!

"Ran-chan!"

Ran shook her head as if she was coming out of a daze and saw that her friends were looking at her with concerned expressions. She smiled weakly then replied, "Oh, sorry. I haven't been getting much sleep lately. Let's get some coffee and I'll be fine."

Was it her imagination or was Heiji staring at her with a knowing expression on his face?

"Don't worry me like that!" Kazuha scolded as she grabbed Ran's hand and started dragging her toward a nearby Starbucks. As Ran struggled not to trip as she was dragged along in Kazuha's wake, she turned her head and saw that Heiji hadn't moved from where he had been standing. He was apparently lost in thought.

What was he thinking about?

* * *

Ran mostly sat back, latte in hand, while her two friends argued with each other. If they would have looked over, they would have seen the despondent look on her face. She had been so excited about her discovery of Heiji's deception until she realized that she had the same problem with Heiji that she had with Conan. She had no proof! She was back right where she started!

She sank down in her seat and sighed. Actually, she might be even worse off. She now faced the prospective of having the two smartest detectives she knew teaming up against her. It was very likely that Heiji had already reasoned out the real reason for her spacing out.

Or was she just being paranoid? Better yet, maybe she was just utterly insane and the men in white coats were going to come drag her away any day now as she ranted about men turning into children and the giant _conspiracy_ that was preventing her from learning the _truth_…

"Ran-chan, you're looking pale," Kazuha said worriedly as she put her hand to Ran's forehead. "It's doesn't feel like you're running a fever, but maybe you should go home. We can do this again tomorrow. We're staying the weekend anyway."

Ran felt tempted to take up that offer, but then she glanced over at Heiji, who was sitting across the table with an unreadable expression on his face. A spark of anger ignited inside Ran. She was tired of running into roadblocks everywhere she turned.

Getting to her feet, she raised her voice and said, "Do you want to know why I'm so tired? It's because I think Shinichi and Conan are…"

"Nee-chan, wait!" Heiji shouted as he desperately stretched across the table to try to cover her mouth. Ran easily knocked his arm out of the way and concluded, "…mystery-loving geeks who aren't considerate enough to let a girl get a good night's rest!"

The expression on Heiji's face was priceless.

Ran then thought about what she just said. She began to blush when she noticed the other customers staring at her.

"Heiji! What are you doing?" Kazuha cried as she frantically started trying to clean up the mess from the drinks Heiji had knocked over in his haste.

"I think Hattori-kun was afraid I'd faint if I got to my feet too quickly," Ran said calmly, pushing her embarrassment aside. "Isn't that right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess I over-reacted," Heiji said. He gave Ran a sharp glance then he continued, "I'm going to take Ran-chan home. Kazuha, I'm going to need you to get us some hotel rooms."

"What? Ran-chan said it was okay for us to stay with them!"

"Ahou! If nee-chan's really sick then you might catch it too! Your coach would kill you if you couldn't enter the aikido tournament next weekend!"

"Heiji…" Kazuha looked like she couldn't decide whether to shout back or smile at the boy. She finally settled on a cross look and replied, "Okay, fine! You be a good mother hen and take Ran-chan home. Ran-chan, I'll call you later to see if you're feeling better!"

Ran waved back as Heiji grabbed her by the elbow and escorted her from the coffee shop.

They continued walking until they were out of Kazuha's sight, then Heiji pulled Ran into a nearby alley. He took a quick scan of the area then he leaned in toward Ran and in an angry whisper, he asked, "What were you doing back there?"

Ran gave him a wide-eyed look of mock innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about. Why did you try to stop me back there?"

"It's like you said. I was worried about you fainting," Heiji replied evenly.

Ran scowled at him. "You're lying."

Heiji smiled cheekily at her. "Can you prove it?"

Ran felt an urge to knock the Osakan boy upside the head. It was no wonder that he and Shinichi got along so well. They were both completely insufferable!

She took a deep breath and slowly released it. "Okay, fine. It's rather obvious that you're not going to help me… directly."

Heiji cocked his head. "Huh?"

"You're supposedly the Great Detective of the West. Well, prove it." Ran leaned her face in until her nose was practically touching Heiji's. "Convince me that Shinichi Kudo and Conan Edogawa are not the same person."

Heiji stumbled a few steps backwards. "Nani? What are you talking about? Maybe you are sick after all…"

"Just humor me," Ran snapped as the last strands of her patience broke. "Because I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong. Do you think I like feeling this way? Not knowing who to trust, feeling betrayed by Shinichi, wondering if Conan is really what he appears to be? So call me a silly girl but take me seriously, damn it!"

Maybe it was the rare display of profanity from the normally unruffled Ran or the note of pleading in her voice, but Heiji sighed and sagged against the brick wall behind him with an air of resignation.

He grabbed the brim of his cap and turned it so that it faced forward, a clear sign that he was thinking deeply. He asked, "I've heard from Kazuha that Kudou-kun calls you a few times every month. How do you explain that?"

"Kaitou Kid imitates voices all the time! Just because somebody sounds like Shinichi doesn't prove anything."

"So the Kudou you've been talking to until now is an imposter? Or are you suggesting that a little boy has the ability to sound like a seventeen year old teenager?"

Ran wished she had a response to that. Either possibility sounded absurd. And she didn't like the implications that came from the idea that she'd been talking to a total stranger for the last few months. Maybe she would be fooled at first by an actor, but too much time had passed by. Was it really possible that the person on the other end of the phone line who she'd been laughing and arguing with for so long could be anyone other than Shinichi?

No, it was not.

"I don't know how he's doing it, but the person who has been calling me is a child Shinichi," Ran said firmly.

Heiji gave her a pitying look. "And the fact that they've both been _in the_ _same room at the same time_? Or is this where the imposter comes into the picture?"

"You tell me. How many times have you disguised yourself as Shinichi?" Ran shot back. Heiji had the decency to look away with a chagrined look.

Unfortunately, she had no other answer to give him. There was a surprising number of people who resembled Shinichi. Maybe he had hired an actor for some of their meetings, but it didn't feel right that every time she had seen Shinichi since their Tropical Land outing was a deception.

Others might ridicule her and say that her answer stemmed from pride or wishful thinking, but she would vehemently disagree. Her thinking was based on observation. There were times when she thought she was talking to Shinichi that she had the weird feeling that she really wasn't.

Yeah, that sounded crazy.

The first time she saw Shinichi after he disappeared was when she first met Heiji.(2) The Osakan detective had just revealed who he believed to be the culprit in a murder case when Shinichi had stumbled in and told Heiji why he was wrong. The whole time Shinichi looked like he had a fever. When Ran tried to confront him after the case was over, Shinichi had clutched his chest like he was having a heart attack, ran out the door, and vanished. She ran after him only to discover Conan hiding in the bathroom wearing overly large clothing that looked like the attire Shinichi had been wearing.

She saw Shinichi again with the "memories egg" incident with Kaitou Kid.(3) He had shown up for a few minutes to talk then vanished again. There had been no feverish behavior on his part that time. Was that Shinichi an imposter? There was no way to tell with such a brief visit.

Then came the longest period of time that she got to spend with Shinichi in the past few months. It was around the time of the school play.(4) There was no way there was an imposter involved then, was there? But Conan had been around too! Though he had been wearing a mask because of his cold and she had gotten a strange vibe off him…

Again, she was heading into crazy territory, but she was going to take this train of thought to its logical conclusion no matter how absurd it seemed. She had enjoyed spending time with Shinichi and hadn't wanted to ruin their reunion by questioning him too much. She had even gotten her hopes up that he might have returned home permanently until he had ditched her at that fancy restaurant. Not only did she have to eat without him and pay the bill but the jerk had sent Conan to break the news to her!

No, wait. Put the anger aside and think about that for a moment.

"Maybe he has a way to temporarily change himself back?" Ran asked doubtfully.

"Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?" Heiji retorted, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Not any more so than anything else I'm saying!" Ran shouted. "I don't need you to tell me how insane this is! And can you really rule out what I'm saying? If I don't know how his transformation happened in the first place then I can't confidently say that he doesn't have a way to change back for a short period at least. It explains why he's always running away from me for no reason."

"Conan has parents!(5) Are they actors too? How did he get enrolled in his school without records? If there are records, were they falsified? Are Kudou-kun's parents in on this deception as well? How far are you going to take this?"

"As far as I need to," Ran replied.

"And where is that?" Heiji cried out in obvious frustration. "Until it's proven to your satisfaction that Kudou-kun and Conan are not the same person? Is that even possible?"

"I don't know!" Ran shouted back at him. "I've never conducted an investigation of something that sounds like it came out of a manga!"

_I don't even know where to start looking_, Ran thought morosely. Then her eyes widened. _Or maybe I do..._

She studied Heiji's face. Was he actually trying to help her? Or had he simply gotten caught up in the heat of argument and inadvertently said too much? She would have to proceed on the assumption that it was the latter.

"You're right," Ran said, her shoulders slumping. "I'm acting like a crazy person. Ignoring all the logical flaws in my argument are not what good detectives do. There are just too many questions that don't have answers that it would be foolish of me to continue. Thank you, Hattori-kun, for pointing out where I have been blind."

Maybe it was her imagination but she thought she saw a flash of guilt pass over Heiji's face.

"I think that I need to clear my head," Ran continued. "Please forget that I talked to you about this. It's too embarrassing."

"Nee-chan..."

Ran felt her own pang of guilt as she walked away from Heiji with her head hung low. She didn't like lies, but she'd been doing more and more of it lately. She wasn't even doing it to protect others like Shinichi was but only to protect herself and her secrets. Well, she never claimed to be morally superior to anyone. She just wanted the truth.

But maybe she shouldn't be so hard on Shinichi when all of this was over. Again, that was a subject best left for another time.

Heiji probably hadn't been fooled by her last minute surrender, but he couldn't be sure that she was indeed lying. Without any proof that she was, he would be reluctant to telling Conan anything more than that she had questioned him then had apparently given up. He might even hesitate on telling Conan anything out of concern that doing so could lead to reawakening her suspicions.

Ran pulled out her phone and pushed speed dial 2. She waited through the ringing until there was a click. "Mom? I'm coming over to see you. I have a favor to ask..."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

A _devil's advocate_ is someone who takes a position, sometimes one he or she disagrees with, for the sake of argument. In this case, Heiji is arguing against the position he actually holds (namely, that Shinichi and Conan are one and the same) while pretending that he's not.

(1) Heiji poorly disguised himself as Shinichi during the school play arc in episode 190 and did a better job in episode 345 at the pirate ship costume party. I'm going to assume that Kogoro told his daughter about the latter deception.

(2) Heiji Hattori first appears in episode 48.

(3) At the end of Movie 3: Last Wizrard of the Century, Kaitou Kid talks to Ran disguised as Shinichi Kudou.

(4) Ran's disasterous date with Shinichi after the school play occurred in episodes 192-93.

(5) 'Conan's' mother first meets Ran and her dad in episode 43.


	5. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

-Chapter 5: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back-

_To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle._

--George Orwell

"This is highly irregular, Ran."

"I know, Mom. Are you saying that you can't do it then?"

"I'm not saying that. I'm just a little surprised. This sounds like something that would be better done by someone in your father's line of work."

Ran glanced around her mother's law office with its shelves of legal tomes and the desk piled with client files and she had to concede that her mother had a point. Maybe it would make more sense to get a private investigator, but the last detective she'd tried turned out to be on Shinichi's side! Stupid Heiji. No, she needed to talk to someone she could trust.

She was quite certain that her mother didn't know anything about what was going on. There was no reason for her to know. Conan and her mother rarely had any interaction, and he always seemed to be rather intimidated by her. Much like Shinichi was...

She would hate to think that Shinichi would go so far as to force her own parents to lie to her. He wasn't that type of person. So she probably would have been safe talking to her father about this, but despite her increasing respect for his detective skills she knew that he was an awful liar. Asking him to act normally around Conan while investigating him would have been unwise.

"I've always respected your intelligence, mom. I don't think this should be any problem for you."

"Such the flatterer. But I really am surprised at you. All of a sudden asking me to investigate Conan's background." Eri pushed up her glasses with her index finger and leaned forward in her seat. "So I suppose that brings me to my next question. Why?"

Ran hesitated for several reasons. First, it wasn't her place to be spilling other people's secrets. Second, her mother was a no-nonsense woman who would never believe her. And third, if Shinichi ever got hold of this she didn't want him accusing her of recklessly telling everyone she knew that she thought he had been transformed into a child.

So she answered her mother's question with one of her own. "Don't you think there's something strange about Conan?"

Eri laughed.

Ran sat back, startled, as her mother placed a hand over her mouth as she fought to suppress her mirth.

"Ran, dear, how could I not? The boy knows how to fly a plane! (1) Your father tells me that he watched him crash-land a helicopter. (2) And we're not even getting into Conan's almost unbelievable genius..."

Eri crossed her arms in thought. "No, there is definitely mysterious about that child. But that doesn't explain to me why you want me to look into his records."

Ran shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She had expected this question and had spent the entire bus ride over planning her response. She didn't want to lie to her mother, so she would tell her the truth. Just not the whole of it.

"Do you remember when I told you about Conan's mother visiting us a few months ago? She thanked us for taking care of her son and gave us money so that we could continue to take care of him and pay for his expenses. And... I haven't heard from Mrs. Edogawa since. Not from her or her husband. There hasn't been one phone call or letter! Conan hasn't ever shown any indication that this bothers him."

"And what do you think this means?" Eri asked, her voice shifting over into her lawyerly interrogation mode.

"I think Conan's parents aren't who they say they are," Ran replied honestly. "I think that they're involved in something. That must be the reason that they left Conan at our home. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's my responsibility to find out what's going on."

Eri looked almost amused. She asked, "You think Conan's parents are criminals?"

"I think there is something they are hiding," Ran answered carefully.

"Hmm, I think the person hiding something is you, Ran," Eri said with a smile. "But I won't pry. After all, all you're really asking me to do is search some public records databases. I assume you want me to attend to this personally?"

"I would prefer that. I'm sorry to ask you to give up your time like this, mom. If there's anything I can do for you-"

"Nonsense. Anything for my only daughter," Eri replied, waving off Ran's offer. "Now, you do understand that I won't be able to access anything not in the public records such as bank statements without a subpoena. And I can't issue those unless you're thinking of issuing a lawsuit against the Edogawas."

"Of course not!"

Eri chuckled then she said, "I didn't think so. Don't worry, dear, I'll take care of it."

"Thanks, mom."

Ran stood up and had turned to leave when her mother called, "Ran?"

"Yes?"

"I'm really proud of you."

Ran was confused. "For what?"

"I know that something has been bothering you for a while. You always seem so preoccupied whenever we get together lately. And not just with your silly matchmaking schemes either! When you came in today, you seemed different. Like you had gotten over a wall or a block. The thing that has been weighing on your mind has been building up for a long time, and I'm glad that you're finally taking steps to deal with it."

Ran felt her eyes tear at the warmth in the older woman's voice. She hadn't realized until then how much she needed someone to support what she was doing. She hadn't realized how worn down she had gotten from everyone treating her like she was insane. Things were only going to get tougher, but it was always nice to know that her mother was on her side.

* * *

Ran had intended to head straight home and plan her next move, but through some strange impulse she ended up at the park near her home. There was no reason for her to be there as Conan and his friends had turned down her suggestion that she pick them up from their outing, but she felt the urge to see the little boy who was at the center of everything.

The Kamen Yaiba event was apparently winding down, but Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko were still shouting and pumping their fists into the air with great enthusiasm. Conan and Ai, however, looked bored to tears. They tried to hide it and would weakly smile whenever one of the other Detective Boys turned their way, but it was obvious that they wished they were elsewhere.

Ran realized that she had never paid very much attention to the children's interactions before. Oh, she knew that Ayumi liked Conan and that Ai Haibara acted more like an older sister to the others than a peer, but that was only because Ayumi had told her such things. But she didn't know what subjects the kids liked to discuss or why they were always getting pulled head-first into real-life mysteries. She often carted them around but rarely paid attention to what they were doing.

It was certainly strange how a group of elementary school kids had suddenly burst into the scene solving mysteries left and right, or how Conan would sometimes get his picture in the papers for fouling Kaitou Kid's latest heist or simply as the spokesperson for the Detective Boys' victories. Conan being Shinichi would certainly explain all these things. Now that she thought about it, hadn't Sleeping Kogoro's first appearance coincided around when Conan started staying with them? Not that there could be any connection between those events...

Ran lost that train of thought when she felt a tug on her sleeve. She looked down to see Ayumi smiling up at her. A quick glance revealed that the girl had wandered over by herself and that the others were still watching the stage.

Ran knelt down and asked, "Are you having fun, Ayumi-chan?"

"A bunch!" Ayumi replied cheerfully. Then she lowered her voice and asked, "Ran-san, can we talk privately? About Conan?"

This explained why Ayumi hadn't immediately pointed Ran out to the others. Ran took the little girl's hand and the two started walking to an emptier part of the park. She listened as Ayumi told her about her frustrations in getting Conan's attention. Such talks had become common between them since the time Ayumi had explained that Conan had a crush on Ran and that she wanted Ran to let the boy down gently. (3) Ran had laughed off the idea that Conan would have a crush on her, but now she had to wonder if she should have so dismissive.

Ran wondered how Ayumi would feel if it turned out that Conan wasn't who he said he was. She wondered if the girl would resent her if she discovered that Conan was actually closer to the 'older girl' in terms of mental age than to Ayumi. And if Conan ever turned back into Shinichi, Ayumi wouldn't just lose her first love, she'd lose a good friend as well.

For the first time, Ran saw that she wasn't the only person who would be hurt by the truth. Her eyes burned in sympathy as she imagined Ayumi in tears. Maybe it would be better if she was wrong after all. But as Shinichi had so often told her, there was always only one truth.

And truth by its very nature was neither kind nor unkind. It simply was.

"Ayumi-chan?" Ran said, getting the other girl's attention. She asked, "How would you describe Conan? I know that you like him, but how do you and the others see him?"

Ayumi must have heard something in her voice because she turned to Ran with a serious, almost solemn expression. She replied, "He's... different. Genta's always saying that he's the leader but everyone knows that Conan is. He's the one we look to whenever there's a puzzle or when we're in trouble. Conan acts like he knows everything even though he's the same age as us, but sometimes I think he really does know it all!"

Ran's lips curled into a smile at Ayumi's description. She knew that feeling well, the awe and disbelief that someone her age would be so full of encyclopedic knowledge and keen insight. She couldn't count the number of times criminals would break down and confess once they realized that Shinichi was not telling them what he _thought _but what he _knew. _

"I'm a little jealous of Conan sometimes."

"What do you mean?" Ran asked. She mentally scolded herself for getting lost in her thoughts.

Ayumi stared down at the ground, her normally sunny disposition nowhere to be seen. She said, "Sometimes, I think that people forget that Conan isn't the only detective in our group. He forgets it too. He's always trying to leave us behind to investigate things by himself! And he always has the best gadgets! It's not fair!"

Ran was startled. "What do you mean by gadgets?"

Ayumi looked at her with a confused expression. "He hasn't told you? The professor's always giving him cool stuff." The girl's voice grew more animated as she started bragging about her friend's 'toys.'

"Conan has this great rocket skateboard! He can track down bad guys with his glasses and he has these super-strong suspenders that lets him lift very heavy stuff! And he has a soccer ball that comes out of his belt! I've asked Professor Agasa a million times why Genta, Mitsuhiko, and I can't get fun stuff like that too and he says that he doesn't think our parents would like it."

Ayumi paused and gave Ran an uncertain glance. The unstated question of who Conan got permission from to use Agasa's inventions if not Ran rang clearly in the silence.

"Er, Conan must have asked my dad or his parents to talk to professor Agasa." Forcing out a weak chuckle, Ran continued, "Conan probably didn't tell me because he was trying to be like James Bond. Be all secret agent."

Ayumi giggled. She said, "That makes sense."

_Glad that makes sense to somebody... I can't believe it! What else don't I know about? Am I really so blind? Gadgets..._

Ran could feel a thought trying to make itself known to her, but she couldn't quite grasp it. It had something to do with Conan's suspicious behavior and the tools he'd apparently been running around with for the last few months. It felt like something obvious, which meant that Ran was going to kick herself when she finally figured out what it was.  
_  
_"Ayumi-chan?"

"Ai-chan!"  
_  
_Ran looked up to see that the Haibara girl was indeed walking over toward them. Ai gave Ran an odd, almost contemplative look before turning to Ayumi and saying, "The show's over. The guys went to get food, and they asked me to go see if you were in the restroom."  
_  
_Ayumi clasped her hands to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry! I hadn't realized that I'd been gone so long! Thanks for talking to me, Ran-san!"

She immediately rushed off but hadn't taken more than a dozen steps before she noticed that that she was running by herself. "Ai-chan?"

Ai nodded absently at her. "I'll be along in a few minutes. There's something I have to discuss with Mouri-san."

Ran stared warily at the little brunette as Ayumi's footsteps receded from them. She liked Ai a lot, but she never knew quite how to act around her. And even though Ai no longer treated her with the disdain that she used to, Ran didn't know what to make of the girl actually wanting to have a private conversation with her.

"I couldn't help but overhear you two talking about Conan-kun," Ai began.

"You know that Ayumi-chan often talks to me about him," Ran replied, a little confused at where Ai was going with this.

"True," Ai acknowledged. "But it seems that she's not the only one who has been questioned by you about Conan-kun lately."

Ran froze. She cautiously asked, "What do you mean?"

"Professor Agasa finds it difficult to keep secrets from me. And it seems that he wanted some advice about a problem he was wrestling with."

"What did he tell you?" Ran asked. She was curious as to why the professor felt comfortable confiding his problems to a young child. But then again, she had learned a long time ago that Ai was no ordinary child.

Ai paused then replied, "Only that you were concerned about Conan-kun's past and that you didn't want him to know that you were asking about him."

That pause told Ran that she wasn't being told quite the entire truth, but she didn't press it. Instead, she asked, "And what did you tell him?"

"I haven't decided. I wanted to talk to you first."

And how was this any of your business, Ran wanted to ask, but there was something about the younger girl's eyes that made her want to listen. She had seen that look in Conan's eyes many times as well. A look that contained a depth of experience that seemed out-of-place on their childish features.

A flash of uncertainty crossed the younger girl's face and her eyes shifted slightly to the side. She said, "I normally stay out of Conan-kun's affairs, but I find myself curious as to what you're trying to accomplish."

Ran spread her hands and shrugged. She replied, "I just want to learn the truth."

"Is it really that important to know?" Ai asked as she took a seat next to Ran under the tree.

"When is it better not to know something?" Ran demanded, more harshly than she intended.

Ai simply stared back with an unfazed expression. She said thoughtfully, "I suppose it depends on the consequences of knowing."

"Not much would get done with that kind of attitude," Ran said with a sigh.

"Perhaps not. Or maybe more problems would be avoided. But couldn't it be considered selfish to want to know when you don't need to? If there's nothing you can do then aren't you just causing trouble for others? If there really is something that Conan-kun is keeping from you, shouldn't you just trust that he will tell you when the time is right? So again, _why _do you need to know?"

Ran found that she didn't know what to say.

What was her reason for doing all this? Why did she need to know? Was it simply to quiet the constant nagging feeling that there was something wrong with her world? When the question was put that way, her quest did seem quite selfish. The people who she suspected knew the truth, Heiji and the professor, had the abilities and skills to help Shinichi. What use would come out of her knowing Shinichi's secret? In the end, wasn't this all about her and her injured pride?

Ran had maintained the entire time that the truth was worth knowing. But for whose sake?

"I..."

Ai's cell phone rang. She picked it up and exchanged a few words with her caller. Then she hung up and turned to Ran. She said, "I have to go. Look, I don't entirely know what's going on and I'm just giving my opinion. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I consider Conan-kun a good friend and I don't want to see him get hurt."

The girl ran off before Ran could reply. That was probably for the best as Ran still had no idea what she would have said.

* * *

Somehow, Ran managed to make it home and collapse on the couch in front of the television in the main office. Her father wasn't home. He was probably playing pachinko somewhere. That meant that she had time to think.

She needed to figure out why Ai's words had shaken her so much. Ran had told professor Agasa that she didn't want to come home one day to discover that Shinichi was dead and that Conan was missing. Wasn't that enough reason to want to know the truth? Was there something wrong with wanting peace of mind?

Her cell phone rang.

Ran flipped it open and said listlessly, "Hello?"

"Why so gloomy? Is that really the way to treat your childhood friend?"

Ran sat up straight at the sound of the familiar voice. "Shinichi?"

"Were you expecting someone else?" Shinichi teased with the cocky cheer she knew so well.

Ran was caught off-guard. It was one thing to suspect that Shinichi was lying to her but another to deal with the suspect himself! Then she smiled. It couldn't be a coincidence that Shinichi was calling out of the blue just when she was getting so close to penetrating his secret. She would just play along for now.

"I don't know who I was expecting," Ran replied. "But certainly not someone who only calls once in a blue moon!"

"Hey! I call more than that," Shinichi said indignantly. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Ran softened a bit at that. "I'm doing fine. Nothing really new has happened in a while..."

The two of them chatted for a while about school, her dad's cases, and random news trivia. She always felt happy whenever Shinichi called but also a little angry because hearing his voice on the phone was a poor substitute for having him around in person. She would always want the conversation to go on longer, but at the same time she'd quickly grown tired of talking about nothing and listening to Shinichi's empty promises that he would come home soon.

As if he had read her mind, Shinichi said, "Ran, have you noticed that you don't ask me any more about when I'm going to come home?"

"I didn't feel like fighting about it any longer," Ran replied, surprised that he would bring such a sore subject up.

"And because you were tired of me constantly letting you down," Shinichi said with a bit of sadness in his voice.

"Shinichi..."

"I want to tell you something, Ran. You've probably suspected for some time now that I've been lying to you. And you're right. But you deserve better than that, so I'm going to confess."

"Really?" Ran asked. She could feel her heart start to race. She had never expected anything like this to happen! Had her investigating pushed Shinichi into finally telling her the truth?

"I've been lying when I say that all the cases I have keep me from coming home. The truth is that there's only one case, and it's the most dangerous one I've ever faced."

Ran gripped her phone tightly. She asked, "And you're working on it by yourself?"

"I was at first, but now I'm working with the FBI to bring down a crime syndicate. Ran, I didn't want to tell you this because I didn't want you to worry, but I'm supposed to be dead."

"What?" Ran shouted.

"An attempt was made on my life a few months ago but they failed," Shinichi said hurriedly. "I've been lying low all this time. That's why I can't be seen in public places. You don't know how sorry I am that I can't go the movies or restaurants with you, but the risk that you and your dad might be under observation was too great."

Ran's eyes involuntarily glanced out the window as if she expected to catch men with black hats spying in on her.

"Don't worry, I don't think anyone's watching you. I'm supposed to be dead, remember? I just can't take the chance that some reporter sees me and announces that the 'great detective' has returned or some such nonsense. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Ran?"

Ran was silent for a long time. This was what she wanted, wasn't it? While it didn't make her happy to learn that Shinichi was in danger, she finally had an explanation for his evasiveness and abrupt disappearances. The idiot hadn't wanted to worry her, so he had just made her think he had abandoned her instead. It all made sense.

Then why did she feel like something was missing?

Finally, Ran asked softly, "Are you telling me everything?"

"What else would there be?" Shinichi asked with obvious puzzlement in his tone.

Ran hesitated then she asked, "What about Conan?"

"What about him?"

Ran didn't know why she was pushing this. Shinichi had given her a perfectly reasonable explanation for his behavior, one that didn't require any conspiracies of silence or magical age-reducing formulas. She didn't think he was lying, at least not about what he told her. Why couldn't she be satisfied with that?

"Are you telling me that Conan has nothing to do with whatever it is you're doing?"

There was a long silence. Then Shinichi replied, "I don't understand what you're getting at, Ran. Conan's a smart kid, and I've taken an interest in the detective work he has done, but I'm not dragging him around on secret missions if that's what you're asking. I'm sorry to be rude, but I did confess something kinda major here and your reaction is confusing me."

Ran hesitated again then she set her jaw in determination. She had come too far to let something like possible ridicule force her to back down now. She opened her mouth to demand that Shinichi listen to her seriously when-

"Ran-neechan?"

Standing in the doorway, holding a soccer ball by his side, was Conan staring at her through his wide-rimmed glasses.

"Ran, are you still there? Moshi, moshi."

Numb with disbelief, Ran could barely hear Shinichi's voice over the speaker as she watched Conan dribble the ball he had over toward her father's desk. It was definitely Conan. There was no mask or anything covering up his distinctive features. But if Conan was in the room with her, then how was she able to talk to Shini-

Wait, she had seen this trick before. (4)

"Nice try, _Shinichi, _or whoever you are," Ran said with heavy irritation. "I won't be fooled by the same trick twice. Who is this?"

"What's for dinner?" Conan asked as he climbed onto the chair behind the desk and slowly started spinning it around with his feet.

Ran rolled her eyes at the childish display. "I'm on the phone right now, Conan. I'll tell you in a moment."

"Ran, I don't know what's gotten into you," Shinichi said, sounding very concerned. "But I gather that you think I'm some kind of imposter."

"Bingo! You're a regular Sherlock Holmes," Ran said sarcastically. She didn't remember the last time she had been so angry. She had finally gotten Shinichi to tell her what was going on and it wasn't even him!

Shinichi let out an audible sigh. "And how exactly am I supposed to prove that I'm me? Or are you just going to accuse me for no good reason?"

Ran felt stung by that. Those words uncomfortably reminded her of her past behavior with Conan. Wasn't she the one who promised herself that she would stay open to the possibility that she was wrong? She glanced over at Conan who was now doodling on a notepad as he spun around. She was still convinced that this was a trick of some kind, but didn't she owe the two males the benefit of the doubt?

"How old were you when your parents moved to the United States?"

"Fourteen. (5) Are you convinced yet?"

"Of course not."

She thought furiously. If the person on the other end of the line was an impostor, then Shinichi must have prepped him or her on what she was likely to ask. She had to think more creatively.

"Three years ago, after the case with the black Labrador and when we were still fighting, we heard a woman singing by the river. What was that song?"

Shinichi chuckled. "That's quite a detailed question."

"Are you saying you can't answer it?" Ran challenged.

"Of course I can. It was _Amazing Grace. _(6)_"_

Ran was taken back but she composed herself. She said, "The music hall bombing wasn't that long ago. The real Shinichi could have guessed that I'd think about that and ask."

"If it's so obvious, then why did you ask?" Shinichi asked with some heat.

Ran ignored the question. Instead, she asked, "In first grade, when we sneaked into the school at night to check for ghosts, what happened that night?"

"You're asking me something from first grade? You're serious about this! Fine, I'll play your game. A man calling himself my younger brother challenged me to a treasure hunt. The treasure turned out to be a sunset." (7)

Trying not to show that this correct answer had rattled her, Ran quickly asked, "When we visited New York a few years ago, your mom drove us to see a play. What was it?"

Shinichi chuckled. "Mom definitely broke a few traffic laws that night. If I remember correctly, we saw the Golden Apple musical on Broadway." (8)

Frantically racking her brain, Ran desperately asked, "On our middle school ski trip, who did we run into?"

"My parents," Shinichi replied with a heavy sigh. "I can't believe they were there, but if mom hadn't told us dad's story about Yuki-onna and her silver robe I might not have solved the mystery." (9)

Ran felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. It had to be a trick! But how? Unless she was prepared to believe that Shinichi had found a psychic mind-reader to fill in for him, she had no explanation for how anyone other than the real deal would have such a command of the minutiae of their lives. And Shinichi may have been a genius but even he wouldn't have been so arrogant to take the risk that he could perfectly predict every question that Ran would ask and prepare someone to answer them.

There was nothing to indicate than an impostor was speaking with her. There was not even the hint of old-fashioned language that she detected the first time that she had accused Conan of really being Shinichi. Against her will, Ran began to seriously have real doubts about her theory.

Was it possible that she was entirely mistaken? What was she supposed to do now?

* * *

Author's Notes:

Question for the Reader: Can you figure out Conan's trick? All the clues are in the chapter itself.

The last scene of this chapter was partly inspired by reviewer Madamag who asked a very interesting question: Why doesn't Shinichi just tell Ran the truth? Or least the part that doesn't deal with his secret identity? Just enough to get her to drop her inquiries if things got desperate enough. That got the brain juices flowing so thanks!

Footnotes:

(1) Eighth movie: Magician in the Sky. Technically speaking, Conan only 'assisted' a disguised Kaitou Kid in flying the plane, but a pilot, even an amateur one, obviously doesn't choose a child to help him out unless he trusts that the child knows something about the subject. At least that's how I see Eri thinking about the matter.

(2) Second movie: The Fourteenth Target. Crashing might not sound like an act of skill but it's really rather difficult to do well. A crash one can walk away from is always a good thing!

(3) Fourth movie: Captured in Her Eyes

(4) Episode 7. Professor Agasa uses the voice-changing bowtie to imitate Shinichi on the phone while Conan is in the same room with Ran. She idly observes that 'Shinichi' is using an old form of Japanese to talk with her but doesn't really think about it.

(5) Case Closed manga "File 1" page 49

(6) Twelfth movie: Full Score of Fear. Many ties have been made to the OVA, specifically the scene where Shinichi and Ran walk down a path beside a river and forest and hearing a woman singing "Amazing Grace." This song plays a major role in the movie.

(7) Episodes 472-73. One of Shinichi's childhood cases. It turns out his initial solution to the mystery was wrong but he didn't discover that until after he turned into Conan so Ran wouldn't know that.

(8) Episode 287

(9) Episode 490


	6. Light in the Darkness

-Chapter 6: Light in the Darkness-

_This thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down_.

--Mary Pickford

Ran was not consciously aware of how she got off the phone with Shinichi. She had the vague sense that she had mumbled a quick apology and a promise to call back later before hanging up over Shinichi's startled protests.

That was extremely rude. It was probably ruder to throw her cell phone under a seat cushion when it began to ring.

She didn't know what she was doing anymore. Her inner voice sarcastically asked if she had ever known what she was doing. Ran could only gaze at little Conan and wonder how she could have gone so horribly astray from the path of common sense.

No, this couldn't be right. Was she supposed to believe that there were two _separate _mysteries going on under her nose? One about Shinichi's disappearance and another one involving Conan and his mysterious past? There had to be a connection between Conan's secret and Shinichi's secret!

There had to be a connection, right?

Somehow without realizing it, Ran had crossed the space between the couch and the desk. She watched her hand reach out and grab Conan's face.

"Ow!"

It wasn't a mask.

Almost grimly, Ran reached out with her other hand and tugged at Conan's hair.

Conan batted at her hands and cried, "Ran-neechan! What are you doing?"

Ran watched with an odd sense of detachment as the boy's eyes filled up with tears. There was no wig. There was no mask. This was not an impostor.

That meant she had spent the last few moments tormenting a little boy and the last week invading his privacy for no good reason. Overcome with a sudden wave of horror and grief, Ran backed away with her hands clasped to her mouth.

"Ran..." Conan said with a stricken look on his face.

"I'm sorry!"

Ran ran to the safety of her bedroom away from the suffocating reality of lies, secrets, and confusion. She collapsed on her bed and tried to block out everything. She was dimly aware of her father coming home and pounding on her door yelling about dinner, but it eventually stopped. She assumed that he decided to get takeout instead.

She didn't know what was wrong with her. This was hardly the first time that her belief that Conan was Shinichi had taken a beating. If she could keep going even after seeing the both of them in the same room and against all common sense and reason then why did she feel so much pain this time?

Maybe it was because she was tired of fighting. She had never tried so hard before in her previous attempts to unmask Conan. She had never expended so much effort thinking and making mental connections between oddities that she had never noticed before. This was the farthest she had ever come and in the end, she was once again facing two horrible possibilities. Either she really was losing her mind or Shinichi had gone to ridiculous lengths to deceive her.

Ran was not especially enthused by either option.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but when she next opened her eyes she saw sunlight streaming through her window. Ran stared blankly at the sickeningly cheerful weather outside for a moment before heaving a great sigh and getting out of bed. As much as she would have liked to mope around in bed all day, she knew that she owed her father and Conan an explanation for why she had locked herself in her room all night.

But to her surprise, the only person who was in the kitchen when she came down was Kazuha.

"Good morning, Ran-chan!"

"Uh, good morning?"

"Are you feeling better? I didn't want to wake you if you were still sick."

Still feeling off-balance, Ran sank herself onto a chair before replying, "I'm not sick, but I've had better days. Where is everybody?"

"Where would you expect a group of obsessed detectives to be? They're out helping Inspector Megure solve a murder mystery," Kazuha replied as she poured Ran and herself some orange juice.

"And you didn't go with them?" Ran asked. She knew how much Kazuha enjoyed seeing the gleam in Heiji's eyes whenever he solved a mystery. (1)

"Without you?" Kazuha asked. She looked like the thought had never even occurred to her. She put her hands over Ran's. "I thought you'd like someone to talk to. Conan mentioned that you were pretty upset last night."

Ran flinched slightly at the mention of Conan's name. Her first impulse was to say that she didn't want to talk about it, but looking into Kazuha's concerned eyes she found that she did want to talk. So she told her friend about Shinichi's call the day before and his confession that he had been lying about why he couldn't come home these past few months.

She told Kazuha that Shinichi was working on a top secret case but not that he was trying to bring down a crime syndicate. She mentioned that she thought Shinichi was still keeping something from her but not that she thought he was possibly an impostor. Finally, she brought up her fear that she was losing her mind.

"I have a hard time believing that," Kazuha said giving Ran a skeptical look.

Ran shook her head sadly. "It's true. Ever since Shinichi left my life hasn't been the same. I didn't understand anything. I couldn't understand why Shinichi couldn't come home once in a while. I couldn't understand why he was always running away from me. And I was afraid that he had grown up and left me behind. We've always been together and the thought that he didn't need me around anymore made me sad."

She was surprised at herself. She had never been so open about her fears and worries before. Maybe it was because she really needed to talk to someone, and she knew that Kazuha was someone who would best understand what she was going through.

Kazuha asked gently, "Don't you think that Kudou-kun feels the same way?"

Ran stared at the other girl in surprise. Kazuha continued, "I admit that I don't know Kudou-kun very well, but from what I've seen and heard he obviously cares about you. If I was him, I think I would be very afraid for the same reasons you are. At first, I would tell you that I hope to come home soon and that would be true. And one day I realize that I have no idea when I'm coming home, but I can't tell you that so now I'm lying to you.

"I'm lying because I don't want to make you cry even though we both know I'm lying. I'm lying because I'm afraid if I tell you the truth you'll move on and forget about me. It's selfish and it's horrible, but I don't know what else to do. I'd hate myself for not just letting you go, but not as much as I would be afraid of you hating me."

"I've never thought of it like that," Ran said softly. "That's really deep."

Kazuha looked embarrassed. She said, "I've been thinking about it for a while. Ever since we really became friends. I wondered how I would feel if Heiji ever did what Shinichi did and just left. What if I discovered he was lying to me? How would I feel? And then I wondered how Heiji would feel. When I think of it like that I can't help but think that he would be really miserable. It's not a good excuse and it doesn't change the fact that what he's doing is wrong, but I can understand why he's doing it."

Ran had never thought of it like that. Maybe it took an outside perspective or maybe it meant that she still had some growing up to do, but she had never really considered how Shinichi felt.

Maybe it was because she needed to be angry at him. Because it was better than believing that he was suffering as much as she was. It was far easier to believe that that he had been sucked into his cases and was having the time of his life solving mysteries and making a difference in the world. It was difficult enough carrying her own pain. To have to carry his as well would have been unbearable.

When the matter was put like that, Ran felt ashamed.

"Don't cry, Ran-chan," Kazuha said as she pulled Ran into a hug. Ran was about to protest that she wasn't crying until she felt the tears falling down her face.

"I just want him to be safe," Ran said.

"I know."

The two women held each other for a little longer before Ran pulled away and wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. She felt somewhat better. Nothing had really changed, but putting her feelings into words had somehow lightened the burden on her shoulders.

Kazuha's phone buzzed. She took it out and checked it then she said, "I need to call my parents back. But I don't have to do it right now if you still need to talk..."

Ran smiled. "No, I'll be fine. Thanks a lot. You can use my room for privacy."

After the sound of Kazuha's footsteps had faded away, Ran walked over to the window behind her father's desk and stared out at the bustling traffic below her. What should she do now? She should probably call Shinichi and apologize for her behavior. But what about after that? Was her investigation now over?

One of her teachers once said that humans had a tendency to invent explanations no matter how bizarre to explain the state of the world. Gods to make the sun rise and gremlins to cause mechanical failures. But not all stories turned out to just be the result of overactive imaginations. Some of them turned out to be true. There actually were tiny animals called germs that cause sickness. Atoms really did exist. There have been many ideas that were considered absurd despite all the evidence that showed that there may be something to them.

The question of the day was whether her theory was a ridiculous myth or a potential truth.

She didn't know why she couldn't let this go. Was being wrong really so horrible? But there were simply too many coincidences and pieces that didn't fit. Something was going on even if it wasn't what she thought it was.

Shinichi would never have given up.

Ran turned to go check on how Kazuha was doing when she was hit by the strange feeling that something was out of place. She stared at her father's desk for a long moment before she realized what was bothering her. The legal pad that Conan had been scribbling on the day before was blank. It seemed that Conan had ripped out the sheets he had used.

That was uncharacteristically tidy of him.

Ran chided herself for her paranoia. Just because Conan was a child didn't mean he was a complete slob. There was no reason that he couldn't have cleaned up after himself. But even as she thought that she found herself looking through the wastebasket.

No torn out pages. It wasn't trash day either.

Maybe Conan had decided to keep his scribbles. She hadn't been watching him the whole time so she had no idea if he had ended up drawing something for school. She was probably overthinking this. Her father might even have taken the pages with him for some reason though that seemed rather unlikely.

Or...

She had been operating under a very binary assumption that if Shinichi knew the answers to her questions then he was the real deal and if he didn't know then he was a fraud. But there was a third alternative. Conan, the real Shinichi, was somehow relaying his answers to the fake.

_Ran's eyes involuntarily glanced out the window as if she expected to catch men with black hats spying in on her._

_"Don't worry, I don't think anyone's watching you..." _

Ran had assumed that Shinichi or whoever it was had simply predicted her likely fearful reaction to hearing that she might be under observation by a crime syndicate but maybe it was more than that. Her caller had been awfully quick to get her to stop looking out the window. She also thought about how 'Shinichi' would not immediately answer her questions. At the time, she figured that 'Shinichi' was simply trying to remember what she was talking about.

Or had he or she really been waiting? She looked at the building across the street and thought about the zooming power of a high-quality pair of binoculars.

"Shinichi..."

Ran was suddenly overcome with a wave of rage. That idiot had made her think she was a monster picking on a little boy. Her anger quickly passed and was replaced with sorrow. Why would Shinichi go to such lengths to fool her? Was his secret that important to him? She wanted to find Conan and shake him for his misguided attempt to 'protect' her from the truth.

There was one problem. There was no proof. It was the same thing she kept running into. Lack of evidence.

Ran almost had to admire Shinichi's cunning. Simple tricks were almost always the best because they were practically impossible to prove.

An idea occurred to her and she could have hit herself for not thinking of it sooner. Writing on a pad left indentations on the pages underneath! She picked up a pencil so that she could lightly rub the page with the lead then she hesitated. She had seen this done before countless times in real life and on television but had never done it herself. She was aware of how easy it would be to destroy the writing that she was trying to recover. (2)

Ran then remembered a trick that her father had once taught her. She quickly closed the blinds and turned on the desk lamp. She fiddled with it until the light shone down on the seemingly blank page at an oblique angle (3). And like magic she could make out the shapes of letters that weren't there before.

She couldn't make out much as it was obvious that indentations from one page had gotten written over the indentations of another, but she could clearly make out the words 'Golden Apple' and 'Yuki-onna.' Ran sank back into the chair behind her and contemplated what she saw. In terms of convincing an outside party, what she had was less than ideal.

Ran could practically hear Conan shouting, "Coincidence!" if she tried asking him about this. But at this moment this wasn't about what other people would think. For her this piece of paper was enough to validate what she had believed for so long. For her, even if it wouldn't convince anyone else, it was one coincidence too many.

Despite everything that she had discovered in her investigation, a major part of her had still doubted. There were still many plausible explanations for Conan's behavior, Agasa's lies, and Heiji's evasiveness that had nothing to do with a secret identity. Shinichi had taken advantage of her doubt to throw her into despair. But now, no matter what happened, she knew that she was right. There was no possible reason for such an elaborate deception other than Shinichi and Conan being the same person.

She wasn't sure how to feel. Should she feel relieved that she wasn't insane? Angry at being lied to? But all she felt was confusion.

Again, she was faced with the question of what to do next. Wasn't it enough that she knew? Did she really have to force Conan to confess? He had gone to such absurd lengths to get her to give up. He clearly didn't want her help. She knew the truth. That was the important thing, wasn't it?

There was, however, two reasons that she couldn't simply stop. First, she couldn't simply unlearn what she knew. There was a reason that Shinichi wanted to keep her ignorant. It probably involved her safety. If her life or peace of mind depended on her not knowing the truth then it was already too late! Now she knew too much, but she also didn't know enough to even know how much danger she had put herself in! That reason alone was enough to justify her continuing onward.

Second, Ran didn't want to lie to Shinichi the same way he was lying to her. It also wouldn't work, not with Shinichi's uncanny ability to spot liars. The only course open to her was to see her quest through to the end. She could only hope Shinichi wouldn't hate her for it.

Ran was surprised at that thought. Why should she care how he felt? He was lying to her! But...

She loved him. She could admit that to herself if to no one else. Whenever she was facing death, his face would appear in her mind. Her heart would race whenever her cell phone rang. She had known for a very long time how she felt about her baka detective friend. She had even said her feelings out loud once even if Shinichi apparently hadn't heard her say it (4). And she had come to believe, to _hope, _that he felt the same way.

_I'd hate myself for not just letting you go, but not as much as I would be afraid of you hating me._..

_...When I think of it like that I can't help but think that he would be really miserable._

Why hadn't Shinichi simply thrown the pad away? Had he been afraid that would make her even more suspicious? Or was it just a simple case of underestimating her? Ran wasn't one of those people who believed that criminals wanted to get caught on some level, but maybe detectives who were forced to lie did. She wondered if there was some part of Shinichi that wanted her to succeed.

Shinichi's mastery of logic and reason tended to fail when his emotions overwhelmed him.

Ran passed her fingers over the surface of the notepad and the jagged remains of pages that had obviously been violently ripped out. She thought about the look of anguish on Conan's face when she ran away from him the night before. She remembered Kazuha's words and she thought about fear and what it drove people to do.

Fear was not a mystery to her. Fear of death was something she was intimately familiar with. Fear had once drove her into a self-imposed amnesiac state (5). Fear of losing Shinichi was never far from her mind these days. How many lies would she tell to save him? How many scars would she gain with each falsehood?

She had wondered if her only reasons for trying to uncover Shinichi's secret were selfish ones. Ai's questions had truly shaken her. But now she had her answer.

The only thing worse than the fear was the loneliness. Even the strongest people needed someone to support them. She may not be able to contribute as much as Heiji or Professor Agasa, but she could at least tell him that he didn't have to suffer alone.

Shinichi could hate her all he wanted. Even if he didn't want her help, she was not going to let him continue to hurt himself lying to her any longer.

* * *

Author's Notes

I'm heading into a very busy part of my final semester in law school and I don't know when I can next update. But at the very least, I wanted to reveal the solution to the mini-mystery of the last chapter before everyone lost interest. I hope you guys are satisfied with my method of deception. I wanted to keep it simple yet Detective Conan-like.

I usually don't toot my own horn, but my favorite part of the last chapter was Ai's conversation with Ran where she made Ran think about why she was doing all this. It not only forced Ran to reevaluate her motivations, it's forced me to do so as well! It's spooky how characters sometimes have better ideas than I do. And Ai accomplished that not by trickery and deceit but by asking something really basic that took me a while to puzzle out. What was Ran's real reason for all this running around? Thus, the ending of this chapter was born.

Announcements:

Congratulations are in order to KeRose for being the first person to figure out Conan's trick! I was shocked and pleased that somebody was on the same wavelength as me.

_"My theory is little far-fetched I think but bear with my insanity. Conan is Shinichi. Phone is an imposter. I want to say its Heiji using the bow-tie. though I don't know if that hides his accent. But if it did, Heiji is talking whilst looking into the office window with binoculars. This was 'cause when Ran looked out the window if spies were watching her, 'Shinichi' instantly said "Don't worry...". When she starts talking about Conan, cue Conan to walk in cause a distraction. Expecting Ran to not fall for the trick again and predicitng she'd start that interview, Conan makes his way to the swivel chair conveniently by the window and gets a notepad pretending to doodle, but in reality writing down the answers to her questions so that Heiji , or rather 'Shinichi' can get them right."_

Perfect on almost all counts. However, KeRose is wrong about the caller being Heiji. He's unsuitable for similar reasons as Agasa, but as I didn't leave any clues with regard to the identity of the mysterious caller this is not too surprising.

It doesn't really matter who the caller is, but I had always intended for that person to be Ai. She is usually the person Conan turns to for these type of deceptions, she is the closest person to him who knows his secret, and she's quite skilled at lying to people. Reviewer Brightwave nailed the sequence of events for that well.

Other reviewers such as basketofseals, Stelra Etnae, and Lizeth have pointed out that in the absence of trickery, Kudou's parents would make the most natural suspects for being the caller. I must confess that this obvious solution escaped my thought processes, but I have two responses (admittedly made up after the fact!) to this.

First, Shinichi has always been extremely reluctant asking his parents for help and I don't see this situation changing that. Second, there are still too many variables with this proposed method. The Kudous may know everything about Shinichi's childhood but they probably don't know as much about his teenage years as they were in America during that time. Shinichi had no way of knowing which periods of his life Ran would have focused her questions on. Shinichi would therefore want a guaranteed way of his voice double knowing the answers. Hence my binoculars-notepad trick. Now, once Shinichi has that trick he doesn't really need his parents' help as he just needs anybody who can read.

Best alternate theory was by Madamag who proposed a notepad communicator that would transmit Conan's 'doodles' to his accomplice. I had actually considered that, but that seemed too much like cheating and I needed a method that Ran would actually be able to figure out. But kudos for creativity!

* * *

Footnotes:

(1) Episodes 381-82: Which One's Reasoning Show?

(2) I know this from experience! I'm big on empirical verification so I tried this and couldn't get it to work properly. I had to turn to the internet for an alternative method because I couldn't get the lead trick to work on the very first try, which is not good with evidence that you can't get a second stab at.

(3) Now this method worked really well without any risk of inadvertently destroying the words I was trying to read. It's a fun trick.

(4) Movie 8: Magician of the Silver Sky. When Ran is landing the plane through Shinichi's guidance she tells him that she loves him. Later, she thinks that the person talking to her was actually Kaitou Kid imitating Shinichi's voice (which it wasn't!), so she's relieved that her 'secret' wasn't revealed.

(5) Movie 4: Captured in Her Eyes. When officer Sato is critically injured by this killer, Ran is the only eye-witness. Suffering from traumatic shock, she loses her memory of everything in her life.


	7. Building the Case

-Chapter 7: Building the Case-

_A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes. _

--Claude Bernard

"What are you looking for, Ran-chan?"

Kazuha was understandably curious as to why her friend had spent the last ten minutes ransacking her own room.

Instead of answering the other girl's question, Ran replied, "When you were a little girl, did you ever play games like Cops and Robbers or Detective and Thief with Hattori-kun?"

Kazuha looked shyly at the floor. She said, "Yeah, Heiji was always pretending to be a detective. Which meant I had to be his assistant or the bad guy depending on what we felt like doing."

Ran pulled a wooden box off her closet shelf and started searching through it. She said, "If you two were anything like Shinichi and me then Hattori-kun probably had a forensic kit. He either had one that was made for kids or he stole stuff from his father to make one of his own. Shinichi did both. And what does every good forensic kit have? A way of taking fingerprints! Aha!"

The Mouri girl pulled a small booklet out of the box and waved it around triumphantly. She said, "In first grade, Shinichi insisted that we fingerprint each other. I didn't want to do it because I didn't want to get my hands all black and dirty, but after he went and had me take his prints I couldn't back down."

"So you're holding Kudou-kun's prints from when he was a kid?" Kazuha asked curiously as she looked at the booklet in Ran's hands. "Why were you looking for it?"

"It's just a project I'm working on," Ran replied with a shrug. She then quickly changed the subject. "Where did Hattori-kun say we should meet him?"

Kazuha gave Ran an odd look but didn't press her inquiry. She replied, "They're not that far from here. He says that they're just about to wrap up the case and that we should meet them there."

"We shouldn't keep them waiting then," Ran said. She put the booklet in her purse then headed out the door before Kazuha could respond. She felt a little bad about that, but she simply couldn't tell the other girl about what she was doing. She supposed that she should have waited until later to search her room when Kazuha wasn't around, but patience was not her strong point.

Figuring out the trick with the notepad had reminded her of an important aspect of detective work that she hadn't really been working on. Interviewing witnesses was all well and good, but finding physical evidence was what she really needed to do. She had done a little bit with Conan's glasses and asking her mom to look into his government records, but while those bits would help bolster her case they weren't the key to cracking it open. She needed concrete proof of identification. Shinichi's fingerprints would help with that, but she still needed to get Conan's prints as well.

The two teenage girls only had to walk a few blocks before they came upon the crime scene. The area in front of the used bookstore was blocked off with police tape and officers. Ran's father appeared to be talking to the press and Heiji and Conan were not around. It looked like Ran and Kazuha had missed all the exciting stuff.

Ran walked up to Miwako Sato who was directing traffic around the blocked off area, and she asked her about what was going on.

"I can't tell you all the details right now out in the open. You should ask your dad later about those, but I can tell you that one of the customers was stabbed in the back of the store and if it wasn't for Sleeping Kogoro the murderer could have just walked away scot-free!"

"Ran-chan's dad solved the case? Where was Heiji?" Kazuha asked.

"Oh, he helped! He found a key piece of evidence in the back storeroom while Mouri-san was explaining his deductions. I think he's in the bookstore giving his statement to Inspector Megure right now."

"Thanks!" Kazuha yelled as she made a dash for the front entrance.

Ran smiled in amusement at her friend's antics and was about to follow when she realized that talking to detective Sato could be useful for her 'project.' She told Sato that she was doing a report on fingerprinting for a school project and she asked her how one went about matching up sets of fingerprints.

"There are a few different classification systems, but they all focus on the different elements of a fingerprint pattern. The basic ones are whirls, arches, and loops. Each of those can then be further broken down into different types of whirls and arches and so on. Depending on what jurisdiction you're in, fingerprint examiners may be required to find a minimum number of matching ridge characteristics before they can conclude that two sets of fingerprints are a match. Computers speed up the process of narrowing down potential suspects, but it's still a good idea to have an expert do a comparison..."

As Sato continued her explanation, Ran realized that this was going to be tougher than she expected. Even if she had any skills at detecting and classifying the differences between fingerprints that came from different surfaces, she couldn't be certain that her conclusions weren't the result of bias. She needed the help of a professional.

"Sato-san? Would you be willing to do a fingerprint comparison for me? I'm not asking you to do a database search or anything like that. I just want your opinion on whether a pair of print sets came from the same person or not and how you came to that conclusion. It would really help with my report."

Sato rubbed her chin in thought. She then smiled and said, "I guess that wouldn't be a problem. Just give me a call and we'll set up a meeting. Your family has really helped us a lot with these cases, and I'm always happy to help people who have an interest with police work. Who knows, you might want to follow in your dad's footsteps one day."

Ran had to smile at that as she seemed to be following that path quite closely these days. She was about the ask the older woman some more questions when her father spotted her.

"Ran! Are you okay? Conan said you weren't feeling well last night."

"Yeah... I was just tired. I had a bad day, but I'm feeling a lot better now." Ran decided to change the subject. "So I heard that you solved another case! Congratulations, dad!"

As she expected, Kogoro Mouri puffed up his chest and gave her a silly-looking grin. He said, "It was nothing for a master detective like myself! That jerk didn't know who he was up against when he tried to pull the wool over my eyes!"

"I don't know how you do it," Ran said with admiration. It'd be nice if she had that kind of ability as well. Her job would be so much easier.

Her dad was still smiling but there was a strain to it now. He muttered, "Sometimes I wish I knew how I did it too."

"Dad?"

"Nothing! Just thinking out loud. Got to talk to Megure! Sato, come with me!"

As Ran watched the two take off, she couldn't help but wonder about her father's words. Even an unobservant person like herself could not fail to notice the peculiarity that was Sleeping Kogoro, and how the man always made a big production of stumbling around before falling to the ground and pretending to be asleep. At least Ran thought he was pretending. It was either that or he had a split personality.

Hmm, maybe that explained why her dad always seemed so confused and disoriented whenever he 'woke' up. In any event, it wasn't any of her business if her father wanted to use a gimmick to get publicity. But someday she would have to ask him when he learned ventriloquism. Learning how to talk without moving one's lips seemed like a bizarre thing to do if one wasn't going into show business.

"Ran-neechan?"

Ran looked down at the source of the voice. "Conan!"

The little boy looked up at her with a scared expression. He said, "Did I do something to make you mad?"

Ran didn't know whether to give the boy a hug or burst out laughing. She really wanted to be angry at him, but she simply couldn't resist the puppy dog eyes looking up at her. She wasn't going to forget his deceit any time soon, but it didn't seem appropriate to take her feelings out on a little boy. But once he turned back into Shinichi...

She must have had a fearful expression because Conan was slowly backing away from her. Ran quickly changed her scowl into a smile and pulled Conan into a hug. She said, "I didn't mean to scare you like that last night. I was angry at a friend of mine, and I guess I didn't handle it very well."

Ran could feel the small body in her arms tremble, and she gently rubbed the back of his head. She said, "Sometimes friends get mad at each other, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still friends. So even if I had been mad at you that doesn't mean that I will never forgive you. I want you to know that you can tell me anything."

She felt Conan's body stiffen then forcibly relax. She gave a mental sigh when the seven year old gently pushed himself out of her hold.

"I'm glad you're not mad," Conan said, giving her the barest flicker of a smile.

Ran looked at the weariness in his eyes and wondered how she could have ever had doubts about the person behind them. What she saw only strengthened her resolve.

"Hattori-kun, Kazuha-chan, and I were planning to go shopping today. Did you want to come along?"

Conan stared at her for a long time before he finally shook his head.

"Your loss then," Ran said as she straightened her legs. "I'm going to call Sonoko and see if she wants to- Oops!"

Conan picked up her cell phone just as it clattered to the ground and he handed it back to her.

"Thanks," Ran said.

As she watched Conan walk away, Ran wished she knew what to say to the boy. If Conan insisted on acting like a little kid, then she would have to continue to treat him like one until she had proof that he wasn't what he seemed to be. Once that happened, would that make interaction with him easier or even more difficult than now?

* * *

Heiji begged off on going shopping, pleading a sudden stomach illness. Ran couldn't call him out on his obvious lie considering her falsehood the day before. She would simply have to tolerate Heiji and Shinichi getting together to create dastardly plots, or whatever it was that geeky detectives did, against her.

So it was just Kazuha and Sonoko that joined her in browsing and trying on clothes. She was mostly silent as she listened to Sonoko rant about her boyfriend Makoto (1). She knew her best friend well enough to know that the girl was simply venting and was not truly angry with the karate otaku. Ran was constantly amused at the relationship between the dynamo whose mouth ran a hundred words a minute and the classic stoic, silent warrior.

"It's not like I have anything against karate, but he doesn't have to talk about his stupid obsession all the time!" Sonoko complained as she pulled a blouse off the rack and added it to a growing pile by her side.

"I know what you mean," Kazuha said. "Heiji's always talking about dead guy this and phantom thief that. Or he's talking about kendo, which is not much of an improvement. You know what I'm talking about, Ran-chan."

Ran gave the brunette a slight smile, but her heart wasn't really in it. It had been a very long time since she and Shinichi bantered over his obsessions with soccer and Sherlock Holmes. Talking with him over the phone just wasn't the same somehow. If she really concentrated, she could remember the laughter and yelling the two of them shared as they walked to and from school. Every day it got a little harder to remember such a carefree life.

So how did she feel about the fact that the person she had missed so much had been in front of her the entire time? It hurt to consider the possibility that Shinichi may not have missed her as much as she had missed him. She didn't doubt that he was suffering, but at least he had known where she was and that she was safe.

Ran didn't want to wallow in her self-pity, and she couldn't neglect her friends when this trip was her idea in the first place. She didn't want to talk about boys any more, so she mentioned to Sonoko that she and Kazuha just came from a crime scene.

"Sleeping Kogoro strikes again? He's going to be insufferable for days, isn't he?" Sonoko said, giving Ran a look of sympathy.

Ran replied with a genuine smile this time. It was no secret that her father enjoyed milking his latest successes until everyone was sick of them. To say that his ego was large was a drastic understatement.

"It would serve him right if Sleeping Sonoko upstaged him this time! (2) Besides, it's been awhile since my name has appeared in the papers," Sonoko grumbled as she headed into a changing room.

"Sleeping Sonoko?" Kazuha asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't think you've seen her do it before, but Sonoko sometimes solves mysteries the same way my dad does."

"You mean by pretending to be asleep?" Kazuha asked with obvious surprise in her voice. She said, "No offense, Ran-chan, but that always seemed kinda silly to me. I'm surprised that Suzuki-san would do something like that."

Ran shrugged and said, "I'm not going to disagree with you. But now that you mention it, I've wondered why Sonoko copied my dad's gimmick. It seemed rude to ask though."

"Do you think it's a reference to a movie or something?" Kazuha asked.

"Maybe. I mean, I remember this one time that Hattori-kun also..." (3)

Ran stopped in mid-sentence as she was hit by a horrible realization. No, it couldn't be possible. It was too absurd. Even as she was thinking this, Ran was already running toward the changing rooms.

"Ran-chan, what's wrong?" Kazuha asked as she chased after Ran.

"Hey, I'm changing here!" Sonoko exclaimed as Ran burst into the changing room.

"Sonoko, why do you copy my dad's sleeping trick? You're already well-known as a member of the Suzuki Group, so there's no reason you need a gimmick to get attention as a detective."

Sonoko looked taken aback. She replied, "I admit that my method may seem confusing to amateurs, but I find that giving homage to a famous detective like your father-"

"Sonoko." Ran's tone indicated that she was not in the mood for games.

The other girl visibly deflated. She waved Ran and Kazuha into the room, and after the door was closed, she said, "Fine. You want to know the truth? I have no idea what's going on with me. Every so often when we run into a mystery, I find myself getting very sleepy and blacking out. Then when I wake up, everyone's congratulating me for solving the case! I can't say anything. It's not like I can admit that my sleeping self is ten times smarter than I am awake!"

"Blacking out?" Ran repeated as she tried to take in this startling revelation. "Do you remember drinking or eating anything strange before you fall asleep?"

Sonoko spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "No, I don't. Half the time I'm just standing around minding my own business and wham-o! I thought that maybe I had narcolepsy or something, but my doctor doesn't think so. And it only happens when we're in the middle of a murder mystery but not always! It also still doesn't explain how I'm talking when I'm knocked out!"

Ran could see that her friend was getting upset and Kazuha was looking increasingly confused, so she that she had to take command of this situation. She said, "It's definitely weird, but I don't think there's anything to worry about. This trance that you go into has only helped you, right? I was only asking because I noticed that you and my dad started doing the sleeping detective thing around the same time and I was curious."

"Does that mean your dad is also blacking out and taking credit for solutions he doesn't remember?" Kazuha asked.

"I don't think that we should jump to any hasty conclusions," Ran said. But in her mind she was wondering the same thing.

It took some strained cheer on Ran's part, but she got the shopping trip back on track. Leading  
her friends in a hunt for bargain shoe sales helped distract them from Ran's erratic behavior. Ran genuinely had a good time, but the whole time she was wondering about what Sonoko had told her. And on the bus ride home she had time to think about it.

It was possible that both Sonoko and her father was suffering from the same bizarre medical condition, but a more likely and sinister explanation came to mind. After all, these 'blackouts' didn't start occurring until after Conan came to live with her family. Also, Sonoko didn't pass out at every mystery they ran into. Only the ones where no other detectives were present.

No other detectives other than Conan.

Ran marveled at her own obtuseness. Ran remembered Ayumi telling her about Conan's gadgets and her own suppositions that Conan had some mechanical way to alter his voice. Shinichi could not stop solving mysteries any more than the Earth could suddenly stop rotating. Of course he would do whatever it took to stay in the crime-solving game. But drugging people (and drugging had to be the method even if she didn't know how it was done) was not something she would have imagined Shinichi doing.

Maybe she shouldn't be so hard on herself. Whenever she was in one of her Conan-is-really-Shinichi phases, she had believed that the extent of his participation in criminal investigations was limited to him pretending to be an overly helpful kid who just happened to have a talent for spotting minor but vital clues. She never would have imagined that he would have tried to continue his sleuthing in a more active way.

What had Shinichi become that he could so casually lie to and drug people? She wasn't ignoring the good she had done. Even when she thought was Conan was nothing more than a little kid, she was proud of him for the lives he had saved and the criminals that he'd helped catch. But making her father think he was a master detective wasn't fair to the man.

Oh god. What was she going to tell her father? Not that she could tell him anything without risking Conan's identity. But even if she could tell him, wouldn't it just be cruel to inform him that his successes were not really his? Ran inwardly cringed at her own thinking. Lying to her father for his own good? How was that any different from what Shinichi was doing to her?

The deeper she dug into the mystery of Conan Edogawa, the more lies she unraveled. Did she even know Shinichi Kudo any more? Had she ever really known?

Ran was getting close to the point where she would have to determine how Shinichi's actions affected how she felt about him. She had told him that she would not stop being his friend and she meant that. But the question of whether she could still trust and love him was not as easy to answer.

* * *

Footnotes

(1) Sonoko Suzuki is in a relationship with Makoto Kyougoku. They're in a long-distance relationship as Makoto, being the martial artist enthusiast that he is, travels around a lot to improve his skills.

(2) When Kogoro Mouri isn't around and a murderer is afoot, Conan uses Sonoko as his detective puppet. He has done this a few times in the series, but the first time was episode 18: A June Bride Murder Case.

(3) Sleeping Heiji might have become another regular addition to Conan's collection of comatose detectives if the Osakan hadn't turned the tables and uncovered Conan's secret in episode 58. I believe that Kazuha has never seen Sleeping Sonoko but I'm basing this only on the fact that Kazuha and Sonoko are rarely seen together. And Heiji's unlikely to be far behind Kazuha so there'd be no reason to tranquilize Sonoko.


	8. Moment of Decision

-Chapter 8: Moment of Decision-

_Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction._

_--_Edward Teller

Two days had passed since Ran put her investigation on hold.

She needed the time to think. When she first threw herself into determining whether Conan was really Shinichi or not, her motivation had been to quell the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something was wrong with her world. That feeling was probably akin to how Keanu Reeves's character felt in that _Matrix _movie her friends had dragged her to a few years ago. All she knew was that something didn't feel right, and it was driving her insane.

Then when she discovered that there was apparently a conspiracy to keep her in the dark, Ran had felt hurt and angry. It wasn't enough any longer to simply prove that Shinichi was lying to her. She wanted to know _why_. But that was until she came face to face with how far Shinichi would go to prevent her from knowing why he had been hiding in plain sight for all this time.

There was something out there that truly terrified Shinichi, the bravest and most reckless person she knew. So much that he was willing to live as a child day-in and day-out. So much that he was willing to let her think she was crazy for thinking that Conan was really some teenage detective. That he was willing to harden his heart every time she fell into a depression over why Shinichi was so obviously lying to her about his 'cases' and why he couldn't come home.

That realization had evoked a combination of anger and pity. She knew that Shinichi did not enjoy making others miserable. She knew that he was trying to protect her from whoever was after him. So she continued her investigation not only for selfish reasons (and she could admit that she was selfish) but to try to lighten the burden on Shinichi's shoulders. So that he didn't have to spend so much time and effort deceiving her, especially when she knew enough that there was no longer any point.

But would she be removing one burden only to impose another? She wanted to support him, but he probably didn't want her support. Just as she hesitated at the idea of telling her father the truth of his success because it seemed unnecessarily cruel, she had to wonder if telling Shinichi that all his attempts to deceive her had failed was really something he needed right now.

However, she had already pointed out to herself earlier that even if she could force herself to lie to Shinichi about what she knew he would never believe her. It was amazing that she even got as far as she did before Shinichi realized that she was onto him.

Shinichi was clearly afraid. She wondered if she wasn't afraid enough. Not for herself as she could less about herself but for Shinichi. Had she endangered Shinichi or anyone else with her running around? She had stopped her sleuthing in order to answer that question, evaluate where she was, and figure out what she wanted to do next if anything.

Professor Agasa and Heiji already knew what was going on, so they weren't in any new danger. Detective Sato had no idea whose fingerprints Ran had given her, and Sato wouldn't know unless she decided to run a computerized search on the prints. Ran trusted that the woman's integrity would not allow her to abuse department resources for her own personal use. There was nothing tying the woman to anything.

The only real loose end was Ran's mother.

Ran thought deeply about this point for awhile. Her mother knew that she was investigating Conan, but she didn't know why. Was that enough to make her a target? If the Organization that was after Shinichi (and she couldn't help but think of it in a capitalized manner) was like other criminal enterprises, it would kill him and the closest people around him, namely her and her father, as an example to others thinking to defy them. They probably wouldn't go any further than that out of fear of arousing suspicion. These types of groups thrived on secrecy, and the more deaths there were surrounding Shinichi, the greater the risk of exposure. Her mother was such a rare part of their lives that there would be no point in investigating her.

Her reasoning was sound and logical, but it didn't alleviate the tight knot in her stomach. Ran stewed about this for a bit of time before ruthlessly pushing the concern aside. What was done was done. The only path open to her now was helping Shinichi maintain his charade so that the worst case scenarios never came to pass.

But she still didn't know what she was supposed to do about Shinichi. Maybe her best option was to pretend not to know anything, and Shinichi could handle that however he wanted. If it really meant that much for him to think she was ignorant of his secret then he might even be able to convince himself that she really didn't know.

Actually, that seemed rather patronizing. It wasn't possible to put the genie back in the bottle here. Maybe she should just shove the evidence she had in his face and let the chips fall where they may. But were either of them ready to deal with the consequences of that? She wanted to give him peace of mind, but that didn't like it was going to be possible no matter what happened.

Ran really wished that she had someone to talk this over with. She wondered how Shinichi had managed not to go crazy with all the secrets he was carrying around. She only had one secret and it was driving her nuts.

Okay, all this moping wasn't accomplishing anything. If she really wanted a sounding board then she needed to go and get one. Maybe the professor would be more amenable to talking to her now.

* * *

"I'm afraid the professor is not in right now. He's at a conference and probably won't be back until the weekend," Ai Haibara said after opening the front door and listening to Ran's request.

Ran visibly sagged. Her hope of getting some words of wisdom from the elderly inventor had just been dashed.

"Thanks anyway," Ran said before turning to go home.

"Wait, Mouri-san," Ai said. The child hesitated for a moment then she continued, "Would you like to come in for a few minutes?"

Ran looked at the girl curiously. This was rather unexpected. Seeing no pressing reason to hurry home, Ran followed Ai into the house.

As Ai set out the tea, Ran couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. The last time she spoke with the girl her world had been shaken. But maybe that was what she needed right now. Some cool, analytical advice to shake her out of her current funk.

Ran had to shake her head at her silly thoughts. She was in trouble if she was seriously thinking of confiding in a first-grader!

"What did you want to talk about?" Ran asked.

Ai paused before she handed a cup over to Ran. She said, "Actually, that was the question I wanted to ask you."

Ran was startled. "What?"

"You look like you could use somebody to talk to."

Ran could hardly deny that! But she was not going to unload her worries on a child, no matter how eerily mature and composed she seemed. "Ai-chan, I appreciate the thought, but-"

Ai interrupted her. "The last time we spoke we discussed when it was better not to know something. I wondered if your opinion has changed."

Ran found herself giving in to the the girl's penetrating stare. She said, "My opinion hasn't changed per se, but it has... evolved. Look, I get that secrets are sometimes necessary, but I still don't like them."

"But you do like privacy," Ai countered. "And what is privacy but a form of secrecy?"

"Everyone has a right to their secrets," Ran replied. "But not at someone else's expense. Nobody has the right to lie to me. If Conan wants to lie to me, then that's his business. But if I want to find out why he's lying to me, then that's _my _business."

"You don't trust him enough to wait for him to tell you?" Ai asked. Her expression revealed nothing about what she was thinking.

"Trust is a two way street," Ran snapped. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she said, "This is not about trust. At least not completely. I spent a lot of time trying to put myself in his shoes. I wanted to understand his thinking and..."

Ran trailed off. Ai wouldn't understand. Even after countless hours of trying to puzzle out Shinichi's motivations, Ran wasn't sure she completely understood herself. She knew that Shinichi wanted to protect her. That much was obvious. But...

Shinichi couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't insist that her knowing the truth would endanger her life while at the same time putting her and her father in the line of fire simply by being around them. She understood his desire to personally watch over her, and it probably made sense for him to hang around a detective's office if he wanted to track down the bad guys, but that didn't change the fact that his presence was more of a danger than any secret he had could be. It wasn't like the bad guys were going to ask her whether she knew Conan was really Shinichi before killing her. The chances of them believing that she really didn't know was next to zero!

But it wasn't completely zero...

And that was why despite everything, Ran couldn't bring herself to be angry at Shinichi. Grasping at straws seemed like a stupid thing to do until one was in a situation where grasping seemed like a good idea. That was why she kept trying to get her parents back together even though she knew intellectually that any reunion that they would ever had would most likely have nothing to do with anything she did.

Nobody wanted to believe that they lacked control. How many mistakes in history have been made because of the idea that one had to do something, _anything_, rather than do nothing? Even if that something wouldn't actually accomplish anything at all? Shinichi probably knew full well that his actions were motivated more by fear and desperation rather than reason, but how could she take that hope, however slim it was, away from him?

Ran realized that her thoughts had drifted and she hadn't spoken for some time. Her eyes snapped open to see Ai sitting across from her patiently waiting.

"It's not about trust," Ran repeated. Upon seeing Ai's disbelieving stare, Ran said, "Let's try another angle. What's one reason for keeping a secret?"

"To protect others," Ai replied immediately.

Ran leaned forward. "Ah, but is it really the secret that protects or is it the secretkeeper? Imagine that your best friend was in danger. He wants to keep you out of that danger by hiding things from you. But what if you're in danger anyway? Maybe you want to believe that your friend can protect you, but what if something happens to him? What protects you then?"

"Just to be clear, we're not talking about Conan any more, right?"

Ran didn't understand the flash of amusement on Ai's face, but she nodded. She felt a little guilty as she lied, "It's just a hypothetical."

Ai shrugged. "Then _hypothetically, _maybe nothing protects you. But what use is there for you knowing other than to be worried? Unless you think you can protect yourself better than he can."

"Maybe I can't protect myself. Maybe I can't help him out at all. But that seems to be beside the point. Do you want an illusory peace of mind? Don't you deserve some say in your own fate?"

"Sometimes peace of mind is all that a person has to give," Ai said softly.

"What if I don't want peace of mind? What if I never had it to begin with?" Ran asked. She could feel her eyes well up, and she had to blink furiously to keep the tears back. When was the last time she was able to sleep soundly? Shinichi didn't want her to worry, but that was not something within his control. She knew that Shinichi was only trying to be kind, but kindness could sometimes be the greatest cruelty of all.

After she composed herself, Ran asked, "And what if I know the secret? Is there any point to maintaining it any longer then?"

For the first time in their conversation, Ai's unruffled expression cracked, and the girl had to turn her head away. She said, "I suppose that if you knew the secret then that changes everything. But I still think it would have been better for you not to know."

"Isn't there a secret you would have liked to have known?" Ran asked.

Ai's bitter laugh made Ran draw back in surprise. The girl's eyes flashed as she looked over at Ran. She said, "I had a sister once. She knew my secrets. She knew who I was. She knew what I did. It would have been better if she hadn't known. Because of that she wanted to help me. So she did something stupid..." (1)

Ran had never seen Ai cry. She didn't think she would have been able to imagine it either. Seeing it happen in front of her, Ran knew she had been naive. She didn't know what to say in the face of such raw pain.

"She didn't tell me what she was going to do! She should have told me! Maybe if she had, she wouldn't have die-"

Ran didn't know what to say, but she knew what to do. In a couple of quick steps, she was at the girl's side and pulling her into an embrace. She expected Ai to struggle and resist, but the girl simply sank into her arms.

"I'm sorry," Ran murmured into Ai's hair as she tightened her arms around the girl. The two of them sat together like that for a few minutes before Ai pulled herself out of Ran's grasp.

"I apologize for my outburst," Ai said brusquely, not looking at Ran.

"Ai-chan..."

"But maybe you understand my position now."

"I do understand," Ran replied. "But I'm thinking that you also understand where I'm coming from."

Ai stared at her for a long moment before she nodded. She then said, "I've always understood the point you were trying to make, Mouri-san. I just think things aren't as simple as you make it. Life is not that black and white."

"Life rarely is," Ran agreed. "But I am where I am, for better or worse. I can't go back."

"No, you can't go back," Ai whispered.

Ran regarded the child before her. Ai Haibara was clearly not an ordinary girl. Whether that was the result of some harsh life experiences or something more out of the ordinary, Ran didn't know. But Ai apparently knew more than what she was letting on. Whatever it was, Ran didn't want to know. She had no reason to know, and she had quite enough on her plate already.

Nevertheless...

"Ai-chan, you've really helped me out today. If you ever just want to talk, then I'm willing to listen," Ran said.

Ai gave her a wan smile. She replied, "Maybe I'll take you up on that offer someday."

Ran gave Ai a final squeeze of the shoulder before she stood up to go home. As Ran made her way to the door, Ai called after her.

"For what it's worth, I don't think Conan ever meant to hurt you."

"If there is anything I know with any certainty, it's that," Ran said before she disappeared out the door.

* * *

It was late by the time she got home. She found a note from her father that he had gone out drinking with some friends. She frowned a little at that, but she couldn't get too worked up about it. She found Conan asleep on the couch with a mystery novel clasped to his chest.

Ran smiled at the sight. She gently extricated the book from Conan's hands. She thought about waking him up to go to bed, but he looked so peaceful lying there. She also decided against taking off his glasses. He might take it the wrong way when he woke up. Ran decided simply to sit back and watch Conan breathe. He looked like the child he was supposed to be.

She wondered what it was like to be him. Going to school with peers who were nowhere near his mental age. Trying to be taken seriously when he couldn't even see over her father's desk without standing on the tips of his toes. Living through every day wondering if he would ever get back to normal or wondering if he was not acting childish enough but also worried that he was getting too comfortable with his charade...

"Oh, Shinichi. What have you gotten yourself into?" Ran asked with a heavy sigh.

Maybe she was being too dramatic. It was possible that Conan was coping just fine with his transformation. Unlikely but possible. He was always so tough and determined. Or at least that was how he always liked to present himself. As some kind of brainy superhero who was beyond the worries and concerns of mere mortals.

And truth be told, Ran had seen Shinichi that way as well. She would never admit it to everyone, but she had seen the teenage detective as someone who was above her. She was not as intelligent as he was nor could she see the things that he could see. When he had disappeared, her worst fears had only been confirmed.

Shinichi had left her behind.

Ran had felt abandoned. It was such an irrational feeling. She had no claim to him, and it wasn't like he had cut off all contact with her. And she knew that, as egotistical as he could be, Shinichi had never thought of her as some simpleton that was merely to be tolerated. But, deep down, she'd wondered if Shinichi was happier without her around. Wherever he was, he probably didn't have to slow down and explain everything or deal with her mood swings.

Maybe that was why she had fixated on the idea that Conan was Shinichi so quickly. She wanted to believe that her best friend was still around in some form. Until the night of the school play, she had been _sure _that she knew who Conan really was. She had no proof, and her previous attempts to make Conan confess had failed, but she had never stopped believing. She had given blood to him on that certainty. (2) Just knowing that he was there was enough to comfort her.

A certain realization struck Ran. It had been such a long time that she had forgotten, but she had gone for weeks believing that Conan was Shinichi but deciding not to say anything, and Conan apparently had never suspected a thing! (3) Typical Shinichi. So sure of his victory over her that he'd dropped his guard. Maybe he was not infalliable after all.

There had been a time when she didn't want to tell Conan what she knew because she wanted him to tell her himself. Was it too late for that?

Ran detected movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to see a groggy-looking Conan sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Ran-neechan? When did you get home?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I saw you sleeping on the couch. You have a busy day?"

"I had a really fun day at school! Sensei showed us how to make a baking soda volcano! It's weird what adding a little vinegar will do..."

Ran could practically see the mask fall over Conan's face. It made her a little sad that Shinichi had learned to lie so effortlessly that he could do so upon waking. Yet this ability probably also kept him alive. She listened for a few more minutes then she asked, "I notice that you fell asleep while reading. Is the book that good or that bad?"

"It's okay," Conan replied. "Heiji-niichan keeps insisting that Ellery Queen is better than Sherlock Holmes (4) and he gave me this book to read. Queen is an interesting character, but the mysteries aren't that difficult to figure out!"

Ran had to bite back a smile at the thought of Heiji's likely reaction if he ever heard about this conversation. She asked, "I'm not surprised. You've always been good at piecing clues together. What is it about mysteries that you like so much?"

As she watched a marginal tenseness come over Conan's body, Ran regretted asking the question. She really didn't have any kind of ulterior motive in her query, but Conan apparently had interpreted her question in that light.

Conan gave her a considering glance. Then he replied, "I like solving riddles. It feels really good when I put pieces of a puzzle together. I like catching bad guys. And I like making sure my friends are safe."

"Those are very good reasons," Ran said, smiling.

"Ran-neechan, do you like having me around?" Conan asked.

Ran was taken back by this sudden question. She said, "Of course I do! Why do you ask?"

"You've been acting weird lately. I thought maybe it had something to do with me. You told me that it didn't, but I can't think of anything else!"

What kind of game was Shinichi playing here? Ran thought quickly. If Shinichi was still under the impression that his trick had discouraged her into dropping her investigation, then he was probably trying to reinforce her guilt about having suspected a little kid of lying to her. It was quite an underhanded tactic, but not more so than what he pulled on her two days ago.

Or that's probably how he rationalized it to himself. Secrecy led one down some slippery slopes, Ran thought bitterly. She was careful not to let any of her irritation show in her voice as she replied, "Like I said, I'm not mad at you. If I'm acting weird, then it's because I've been having some stressful days lately."

"Really?"

"Really," Ran replied. She looked into Conan's eyes and she said honestly, "I do love having you around, Conan. You're like the little brother I never had. It was a little lonely with just dad and me. Having you around makes my life a lot more fun."

Conan smiled at her. His smile was full of childish innocence, but there was a brittle quality to it and more than a touch of guilt. It suggested that if she was to push it would collapse completly. His mask was slipping. He didn't seem to be aware of it. Ran found herself turning her head away, unable to face that crooked smile.

"I like living here too," Conan said. His voice contained none of the turmoil that she had briefly seen on his face.

"Oh?" Ran asked lightly. "Why do you like living here?"

"Because you're here. I sleep better knowing that Ran-neechan is watching out for me. I feel safe here."

The conviction in Conan's voice surprised her. Ran had suspected that he lived with her and her father to take advantage of her dad's detective service. She had figured that he also wanted to be close enough to keep an eye on her and ensure that she was safe. But she never would have thought that he needed her presence as much as she needed his.

Maybe a part of him liked pretending that his life wasn't in danger and being able to live some semblance of a normal life. Sure, having her baby him had to be annoying, but didn't it also indicate that she cared about him? Did watching her live a carefree student life give him the motivation to keep going? Did it remind him of a more innocent time? And if so, could she really take that away from him?

Conan had invested an awful lot into keeping her in the dark. Could he deal with the knowledge that all his efforts were for nothing? That he had thrown away his morals and bruised his soul only to fail? How would he be able to live with himself?

She'd fooled him once. Maybe she could do it again. He never had to know that she knew...

What was she thinking? When did she become such the hypocrite? How could she even consider this? She was thinking in circles! She remembered her own words to Ai just earlier today. _Do you want an illusory peace of mind?_

And she remembered Ai's response. _Sometimes peace of mind is all a person can give_.

Was it really better for him to know? Was it really necessary for her to push this? For the first time Ran thought she actually understood why Shinichi had made the choices that he did.

Ran stared deeply into Conan's blue eyes for a long moment, and she made her decision.

* * *

Footnotes:

(1) Akemi Miyano was Ai's sister. She was also a part of the Black Organization, but she was able to lead more of a normal life than her sister the scientist. Akemi made a deal with Gin to buy freedom for her and her sister, and she ended up losing her life in the process. See episodes 128-129.

(2) Episode 189: The Desperate Revival - The Wounded Great Detective. Conan was shot and he needed a blood transfusion of a type that the hospital just happened to run out of. Ran immediately volunteered to be a donor on the certainty that she and Conan share the same blood type. This is important because Ran and Shinichi share the same blood type, and this leads Conan to realize that Ran had known who he truly was for some time.

(3) In the same episode, Conan realized that Ran had been walking around with the knowledge that he was Shinichi for quite some time without him even suspecting. He came very close to deciding to tell her the truth on the grounds that if she already knew then there was no longer a reason to hide it. Ai convinced him that this would be a bad idea and came up with a plan to convince Ran that she was wrong.

(4) Heiji is a fan of Ellery Queen just as Shinichi is a fan of Sherlock Holmes. They bickered about this once in episode 57.


	9. Discoveries and Explanations

-Chapter 9: Discoveries and Explanations-

_There is only one truth!_

_-_Shinichi Kudo

The game was afoot. Literally.

Ran watched Conan dribble the soccer ball around Genta before scoring a goal. The Detective Boys had decided to play soccer today and had invited some classmates to come with them to the park. Ran thought it was a nice day for a picnic and had invited Agasa and her father to come along. The two adults were both currently drinking at one of the park's tables.

Ran had opted to stay on the spread-out sheet where a dozen hungry mouths had been swarming around an hour before. She wanted to watch Conan have fun and ease the pressures he was under. She often wondered what it was about soccer that Shinichi enjoyed so much. It didn't quite fit the thinking man image he tried to cultivate.

If he had simply wanted to stay in shape then he could have just continued his karate lessons like she did. Self defense was a more practical skill for a detective to have anyway, but maybe she was biased. Yet Shinichi excelled in soccer as he did in most things (aside from singing!). He could have been the star of the high school soccer team if he wanted to, but he wanted to be a detective more. He probably wouldn't have gotten into so much trouble if he had chosen otherwise, but Ran knew soccer was just a diversion for his real passion, solving mysteries.

While watching him, Ran could see Conan display the same steely determination on the field that he had shown as a teenager. Even with his short legs, he had more experience than any of the other children playing. But she could also see that he was holding back his full skill. And she suddenly remembered all the times that Conan had to 'stumble' across a clue in order to get anyone to listen to him. Conan _always _had to hold back with kids and adults. It was a sobering realization.

Conan and Ayumi were on one team and Genta and Mitsuhiko were on the other. Ai had decided to sit under a tree and read a magazine. Ran thoughtfully regarded the young girl. She wasn't blind. She knew that Ai was somehow connected to Conan's secrets, but Ran had no intention of ferreting out that connection. It wasn't relevant.

Despite what Ai may have thought, Ran respected secrets. She wasn't nosy just for the sake of being nosy. What she didn't respect was being manipulated. So unless Ai wanted to tell her what was going on with her, Ran was prepared to leave the matter alone. Yet she couldn't help but sometimes wonder if the reason that Ai was so similar to Conan, the reason that she possessed the same unnervingly mature air, was because she... No, she had to stop. Ran couldn't suspect every precocious child she met of secretly being an adult. That way lied madness.

The sound of cheering broke her out of her thoughts. She looked up to see that Conan's teammates were laughing and jumping all over him. It seemed that he had just won the game for them. Ran felt warmed by the wide grin on Conan's face. It was good to know that even in his new life he could still find joy in the little things.

Ran's smile faded at that thought. She had been trying to avoid thinking about it, but there was the real possibility that she might never see Shinichi again.

Even if he did change back he wouldn't be the same person. She would have to say that while his time as Conan has changed him for the worse in some ways it had also changed him for the better. The old Shinichi would have never worked with anyone on his investigations, much less a rag-tag group of kids. It was probably true that he didn't have much choice, but it was also true that he showed more patience with them than he used to. She had noticed the way the other kids looked up to him and the way he treated them like younger siblings.

But whether it was as Shinichi or Conan, as a friend or something more, Ran still wanted this _person _in her life. She would hope to have her old friend return, but she would deal with it if he didn't.

Conan managed to extricate himself from his adoring teammates and made his way over to Ran's side. He gave her a boyish grin and said, "I think you can guess the result."

Ran smiled back. Then she said, "I saw. Congratulations. Are you done or are you going to play another game?"

"I think everyone's beat. I'll probably be heading back soon."

Ran hesitated for a moment then she said, "I was going to ask you to help me with an errand, but if you're tired..."

Conan's eyes brightened with interest. "I'm always happy to help you out, Ran-neechan!"

Ran resisted the urge to ruffle the boy's hair. Instead, she said, "It's not going to be much fun. I'm just going to dust Shinichi's house for him."

"I guess it's around that time again," Conan said in an oddly subdued tone. He then said, "Will Sonoko-neechan be there?"

"Not this time. She has a business function that she has to attend. I understand if you don't feel like it though."

"No, I'll come," Conan said quickly.

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

The walk over to the Kudou's house was a silent one. Normally, Ran would have engaged Conan in a conversation about his recent victory and about what he was doing in school, but this time she wanted to give him a break from having to come up with childish babble. And she wasn't in much of a mood for talking.

Instead, she watched him as he half-walked and half-ran a little bit ahead of her. He was the perfect image of an impatient child whose energy and enthusiasm would easily put him ahead of slower, more sedate adults. She compared this sight of him to the child he had been when they first met. Then, Conan had appeared to be a miniature adult, uncomfortable in his own skin. He would insist on wearing his jacket and bowtie everywhere as if to convince others of his maturity.

These days Conan was much more relaxed and would even wear more casual clothing. His cheerfulness was less forced and he didn't work as hard as in the past to hide his intelligence. Was he adapting or had his acting skills simply gotten better?

Ran knew Shinichi well enough to know that he would never give up on correcting the injustice done to him, but she hoped that he could draw some measure of happiness out of his new identity. She hated to think that it had just been all lies and misery for him.

They arrived at the house that Shinichi had supposedly abandoned a few months ago. As if by some unspoken agreement, Ran and Conan separated to clean the different parts of the large home. Ran started wiping down the furniture in the living room with well-practiced motions only stopping occasionally to linger over old memories triggered by a picture or memento.

Ran had practically grown up in this house. It was filled with memories of laughter and running around and listening to Mr. Kudou's stories and watching Mrs. Kudou's dramatic monologues. Every time Ran had come to clean, she remembered what it was that she had lost. But she knew that even if Shinichi walked through the door as his normal self the next second they still wouldn't get back the time that had gone by or the time they could never regain.

That was part of growing up. What was done was done. The important thing was that she had found Shinichi again. Even though he had never really left her and even though he wasn't quite the same person that she had grown up with, she had found him.

When Ran entered the library, she saw that Conan was standing in front of one shelf apparently lost in thought. She followed the direction that his eyes were looking in and was amused to see _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes _by Arthur Conan Doyle and _Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination _by Edogawa Rampo. Well, that certainly explained a few things.

"Have I ever told you about Shinichi's obsession with Sherlock Holmes?"

Conan looked startled at her presence, but he quickly recovered. He replied, "I think you've mentioned it a few times."

"But I don't think I've ever mentioned how much I respected Holmes," Ran said.

The startled look came back. Conan asked, "Really? I thought you didn't like Holmes."

"It was Shinichi's constant need to relate _everything _to Holmes that I found annoying. Not the character itself," Ran said. "Personally, I thought Holmes was an amazing man and detective. He reminded me of Shinichi though I suppose it should be the other way around. Not that I could ever tell him that! He'd probably just make some comment about me being his Watson. People have been making that stupid joke since I was eight."

"Not in a good way, I'm guessing." Conan sounded casual but there was a hard edge to his tone.

Ran shrugged. "I've always been teased for being friends with Shinichi. At first it was because I dared to be friends with a _boy_. Then after Shinichi got his reputation as the neighborhood detective, everyone talked about him as the brilliant investigator and I was the dumb sidekick who was always tagging along. Then someone decided that if you were Holmes then I must be Watson."

"Watson wasn't a stupid man," Conan said quietly. "He was Holmes's best friend and companion whose presence and insights helped Holmes achieve his success. If people really understood that, they wouldn't act like being called a Watson was some kind of insult."

Ran blinked at the outburst. Then she smiled and said, "I know now that Watson was a smart and humble man and if he seemed slow compared to a genius like Holmes... who wouldn't? And I know that Holmes valued and respected Watson very much, but I have to wonder if he didn't also underestimate him."

"What do you mean?"

Ran reached out to the shelf and pulled out a copy of _The Return of Sherlock Holmes. _She then said, "Holmes was always tricking and keeping secrets from Watson. He even let the poor man believe he was dead for three years. I know he did it to protect his friend. I can understand that, and I'm sure Watson did too, but I can't help but think that it must have been very painful for him to be thought of someone who needed to be protected."

"Because he was a war veteran?"

She idly started flipping through the book in her hands. "Partly because of that, but mostly because as someone who had faced numerous dangers over the years at his friend's side, he had never thought of himself as a liability."

"Have you ever considered how Holmes felt about having to lie to his friend?" Conan asked.

Ran set the book down on a table before she crouched down so that she was eye level with Conan. She asked, "How do you think he felt?"

"I think... he knew what he did was bad. That it was a horrible thing to do. Maybe it was even the wrong thing to do... but there was nothing he could do about that. He had made a decision and it was too late to change it. He had to see it through. To do otherwise would have meant that all the pain and suffering he caused his friend to have was for nothing. But that doesn't take away the guilt. That book you're holding says that Holmes was tempted several times to write to Watson and tell him he was alive, but he always resists because..."

"Because?" Ran prompted.

Conan looked up at her with an unreadable look in his eyes. He said, "How could he tell his friend that he was being hunted by an international crime syndicate? Isn't it cruel to tell him when there's nothing he can do to help? And Watson was happy. Even though he missed Holmes, he was still able to make friends and go about his life. He was able to sleep soundly through the night. Should Holmes have taken that happiness away just so he wouldn't have to feel guilty?"

Ran was about to ask how Holmes would know whether Watson slept soundly or not until she realized that Conan was no longer just talking about a fictional character. He was talking about her. It was true that while she worried about Shinichi and occasionally had paranoid suspicions that he was masquerading as Conan, she didn't spend every waking moment thinking about him. She could laugh with Sonoko, spend time with her parents, and even have a good night's sleep without wondering if Shinichi was in mortal danger. Because most detective work happened after the danger had already passed or in the presence of dozens of law enforcement people.

She had worried about whether Shinichi was staying healthy or if he was seeing other women. She worried about whether he would ever come back or if he would do something reckless and stupid during the course of the investigation that would get him hurt. She had rarely wondered if he would be gunned down by a mad criminal. After all, it was highly unlikely that the people he was after had a personal vendetta against him. As far as she knew, all the criminals he had put behind bars were still there. To anyone else, Shinichi would just be some hotshot teen detective who couldn't be much of a threat if he still couldn't catch them after all this time.

So aside from occasional irrational fears, Ran hadn't worried too much about the possibility of Shinichi coming home in a body bag. But now she would. Especially now that she knew that Shinichi was a little boy who had far less strength than he used to.

That made her wonder how she would have reacted if she had known from the beginning who Conan really was. Would she have tried to lock Conan up for his own safety? Tried to convince him to not go after the bad guys alone? She knew herself well enough to recognize that her first instincts would have been to protect Shinichi from any and all dangers. If they hadn't been able to work that conflict out, then he might have driven away to go live with Professor Agasa or his parents, and she would have never known the joy of living with Conan that she had now.

On the other hand, her instincts to save _Conan _from what she perceived to be his childish recklessness had almost certainly interfered with a few of his investigations and possibly endangered both of their lives and the lives of others. By this point in time Conan had more than proven his ability to handle danger, but Ran didn't like the idea of a _child_ being in danger in the first place. That had led to many instances of Conan having to evade her grasp while he tried to solve murder mysteries.

If she had known that this innocent little boy had the tools, friends, and the adult mind to keep himself safe then Ran would have been more lenient because Shinichi would have proven that losing ten years hadn't affected his ability to face criminals. There was a certain irony to the situation. Shinichi might have been disadvantaged by her knowing the truth from the start, but he was presently disadvantaged by her not knowing the truth _now_.

"Maybe..." Ran began slowly. "There was some justification _at first_ for Holmes to not tell Watson that he wasn't dead. He didn't know who was watching and he needed Watson to convincingly portray a man in mourning. The situation Holmes was in was an exceptional one so he was probably making up what to do as he went along. He deserved some leeway for that. But there is a certain point when an emergency stops being a justification and starts being an excuse to not do the hard thing.

"You think it would be cruel to let someone agonize over something they can't change. That it's more important for them to be happy. Do you think that Watson was happy knowing that his friend sacrificed his own happiness for his? Is it a fair exchange to have peace of mind at someone else's expense?"

"It's not a just a matter of happiness. It's also about safety!" Conan protested.

"Safety always comes at a price," Ran said softly. "What will one give up for it? Is the desire for it based on real probabilities of danger or from fear and uncertainty? I also think the person whose safety is in question should have some say in the matter. If someone was out there sacrificing himself on my behalf, I'd like to know who it was. Because in a way I would be responsible for the choices they make."

"It's not like Holmes would have never told Watson the truth!" Conan said. "He just wanted to wait until he had captured all of Moriarty's gang. After that... he was willing to face the consequences of his actions."

"Did he know Watson was going to forgive him? He sure acted like it," Ran said.

Conan gave her a sad smile. "There are times when even I don't understand Sherlock Holmes. There are some acts that one can't expect to simply be forgiven for."

"But Watson did forgive him," Ran reminded him. "Because real friends don't throw away everything they've been through together. Watson understood that Holmes was human, and that he was just worried about him. His actions may have been wrong, but his heart was in the right place. That's why he could forgive the lies and the deception."

Ran reached out and gently cupped Conan's chin so she could look directly into his eyes. She said, "And that's why I can forgive you... Shinichi."

Conan's eyes widened and he looked like he was about to say something, but Ran silenced him with a finger over his lips. She said, "I'm not asking you to confirm or deny anything. I'm just telling you that I _know_."

Her legs were starting to ache from crouching for so long, so she found a nearby armchair to sit on. Conan hadn't moved from where he standing, but she knew that she had his full attention. She gave him a slight smile and said, "This is going very differently than how I imagined when I originally started this whole thing. It was going to be like the dramas. I was going to lay out my case brick by brick and force you to confess.

"I would tell you that I know your glasses are fake, and you'd say that wearing glasses makes you look smarter. I'd tell you that I know you're using a gadget that the professor gave you to imitate Shinichi's voice, but you'd just say that doesn't prove that you _are _Shinichi. This whole detective thing is harder than you make it look. I even had my mom go snooping through your records, but they're perfect. Or in her words _too perfect_, but that's hardly a scientific conclusion."

Ran rummaged around in her handbag and pulled out a manila envelope. She said, "But I'm not good at stuff like that, so I'll get to the point."

She handed the envelope over to Conan who quietly took it. She closed her eyes in weariness as Conan pulled the sheets out of the envelope. The first sheet was the page that Ran had torn from the notepad that Conan had used for his trick. She had discovered from the Internet that the use of pulverized gravel would cause the indented writing to appear.

That sheet alone would have put Conan in quite an awkward position, but the next few pages would seal him in. They were Sato's handwritten report detailing her expert opinion that the fingerprint samples that Ran had provided to her came from the same person. The prints that Ran had gotten out of Shinichi's old fingerprinting book and the ones she had gotten from making Conan touch her cell phone had matched on all the ridge characteristics Sato had checked.

She supposed that if Conan really wanted to he could question the validity of the comparison or come up with half a dozen ways to throw the evidence into doubt. But this wasn't a courtroom, and Ran wasn't looking to Conan for confirmation. She was telling him what she knew to be true.

Ran opened her eyes and looked over at Conan. She winced a little at the look on his face. It was an expression that conveyed shock, anguish, resignation (and just a tiny bit of pride?). But she only saw the look for a second before he turned his face away. He seemed to be at a total loss of what to do or say, which had to be a rare thing for the young detective.

"I almost didn't tell you," Ran finally said to fill the silence. "I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. I knew it would hurt you. I don't like you lying to me, but I knew that it was important to you that I didn't know who you were. But Shinichi, I _do _know. Maybe I couldn't prove it before, but on some level I had always known. And you need to know that so you can figure out how it affects whatever it is you're doing.

"And no, I don't know what you're doing. I don't know how you became this way or why you're pretending to be someone you're not or why you don't want to tell me. I don't know what has you so spooked that you can look me straight in the eye and lie without flinching. I have some ideas, but they're just speculation. I guess I'm not a very good detective after all. I didn't wrap up every little detail."

Ran tried to give a small laugh, but her heart simply wasn't in it. She said, "But you know what? I don't care about any of that. I thought I did at first. I thought that I would do everything possible to find out _why._ Why my best friend would hurt me like this. Why he would deceive and manipulate me and my dad while living with us under our noses. Oh, Shinichi, I was so angry at you. But... these last few weeks have given me a better idea of what you're going through. It doesn't change everything, but...

"It may seem hypocritical of me to say this, but I don't want to make things more difficult for you. There was only one mystery I really wanted to solve, and that was because it was driving me crazy! To be honest, I think it would be better for both you and me if you would let me in, but I'm not going to force you to tell me what's going on. There is one thing I can do for you though. I can stop you from wasting your time and energy trying to convince me of something we both know is a lie.

"And that's why I decided to tell you what I was doing instead of just pretending that I had never discovered anything at all. Because no matter how you've changed, there's one thing that hasn't. You're still a detective, and you would never hide or wanted to be shielded from the truth. No matter how much it hurt."

"There is only one truth. It is neither kind nor unkind. It simply is," Conan said, sounding very tired and bitter. "And the truth is that when it comes to upholding the values of honesty and decency, you've been a far better person than me."

Conan had been standing this whole time she was speaking with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. Now he looked up at her, but his face revealed nothing of what he was thinking. He seemed to be waiting for something, but Ran didn't know what it was. Finally, he asked, "What do you intend to do now?"

And even though he kept his face blank and his body language guarded, Ran could hear his unspoken words very clearly.

_Do you want me to leave?  
_  
He offered no excuses or apologies. Standing like a man facing a firing squad, he was waiting patiently for Ran's judgment. She knew that if she told him to get out of her life he would do so without complaint. She had already told him that she had forgiven him, but either he didn't believe her or he was giving her a chance to get rid of a clear and present danger to her life and family.

Ran was not going to have any of that self-sacrificing nonsense. She said, "I am going to go home and make dinner. I am going to expect you to set up the table, and we're going to have a nice meal with dad. At some point we're going to have to figure out how to act around each other. I'm guessing that you'll want me to treat you as Conan as much as possible, but there are clearly some things that will have to change, such as me not getting in your way when you're on a case. And there's one more thing I have to say."

In one quick movement, she had gotten out of her seat and wrapped her arms around Conan before he could even react. She said, "I've missed you."

As she was about to pull away, she found she was unable to do so because two small hands were clutching onto her jacket. She could feel Conan's body starting to tremble, and she instinctively squeezed him tighter. She waited patiently for Conan to collect his thoughts.

"There were so many times that I've wanted to tell you, but I could never go through with it. I told myself that the situation was temporary, and I could always tell you after I changed back. But that time got farther and farther away and the lies kept piling up... I'm sorry..."

His voice was choked with emotion, but he was obviously trying to stay strong. Shinichi had never reacted well to sympathy, so Ran forced herself to stay silent and allow him to continue.

"It wasn't that I didn't trust you. I can tell you're thinking that even if you haven't said it. It was that I didn't trust myself. You don't know how hard it is to always be pretending to be something I"m not. I was always afraid that if you knew I wasn't really a seven year old, I'd be tempted to lower my guard and be myself. It only takes one poorly chosen moment to-" Conan broke off with a grimace. He forcibly made himself continue, "I knew I wasn't being fair to you, but if something happened to you because of my weakness then it really would be my fault..."

"Conan, you haven't exactly been hiding under the radar since I first met the new you," Ran said lightly trying to break the tension and was rewarded with a weak laugh from Conan. She continued, "And while you may not have faith in yourself, I do. I can't count the number of times you've saved my life. Even if you're right about the danger, I'm willing to take that risk because I am not willing to have you shoulder all of the burden. Especially if part of the reason is to protect me."

Ran drew back slightly so she could see Conan's face. She asked, "Are you angry that I know?"

Conan took off his glasses and ran his other hand across his face. "Honestly? I'm a little upset, but I'm also relieved, if that makes any sense. I suppose it was inevitable that you would find out. You're one of the most stubborn women I know."

Ran smiled slightly at that.

"I'm worried about the future, but we'll deal with it. Now that I'm actually standing in this moment, I'm starting to wonder if I haven't overreacted. Other people have found out before and the sky hasn't caved in. But you've always been different, Ran..."

"That's sweet, Shinichi, but I'm not a damsel in distress," Ran said firmly.

"No, you're not," Conan agreed. His brow furrowed. "There's stuff that I should probably tell you, but that could take awhile and I'm not sure where to start..."

Ran could tell that it was going to take some time for Conan to get used to the idea of openness. The habit of secrecy was too ingrained. He obviously wasn't comfortable with telling her everything. Ran was curious about his other secrets, but she had meant it when she told him she wasn't going to badger him about them. If all she could do for him was support him in his endeavors then that was what she would do. She decided to give him an out.

"I think I've had my fill of dramatic revelations for the day," Ran said brightly. She stood up and brushed off her jeans. "So I think we should get going unless there's anything you want to ask me about."

"There is one thing..."

"Yes?"

"I want to hear more about your case."

Ran was taken back by that. She said, "Do you really want to hear it? I mean, I didn't really do all that much..."

"I know you've been talking to Heiji and the professor. That's why I had to go to such extreme measures to throw you off the trail." To his credit, Conan briefly looked ashamed at that. "And you've mentioned a few other things that makes it sound like there's an interesting story to be told. I also have the feeling that you know more than you're letting on."

Perhaps sensing that Ran was still a little hesitant, Conan grabbed her hand and dragged her back to the chair she was just in. He said, "I've told you before that you need to have more confidence in your deductions. Actually, considering that you made it this far, lack of confidence probably isn't a problem for you."

Conan smiled at her, and Ran was reminded of the time she had kept her friend Aya from getting fired from her job by proving that she wasn't the person stealing from her boss. Ran had been hesitant about unveiling her theory, so she had called Shinichi to get confirmation that she was correct. He had refused to tell her saying that he didn't wanted to take away the thrill that came from discovering whether or not one was right.

_"When one's deductions hit the bulls-eye, it's the greatest feeling in the world," _Shinichi had told her at the time.

Conan was inviting her to share her discoveries with him. It was an oddly touching gesture. He had always supported her attempts to play amateur detective, and he was telling her now in his own way that this hadn't changed. Ran soon found herself having her first real conversation with Shinichi in a very long time. There were still many things the two of them needed to discuss. Her life had just become a lot more complicated.

But for the moment, she would forget about all of that and focus on telling Shinichi how she solved the mystery of Conan Edogawa.


	10. Epilogue

-Chapter 10: Epilogue-

_Revealing the truth is what detectives live for._

--Kogoro Mouri

"Conan-kun! Dad! Time for breakfast!"

Ran had just finished setting out the plates when the two men of the household walked in with bleary eyes and yawning loudly.

Kogoro stumbled over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup before sitting down at the table and opening a newspaper. Conan also tried to reach up for the steaming pot, but Ran quickly lifted it above his head.

"Sorry, Conan-kun! Coffee is for _adults_!"

Ran had to suppress a grin upon seeing Conan's groggy glare. Instead, she reached over and ruffled his hair. Conan squawked and ran to the other side of the table. Okay, maybe she was enjoying this a bit too much, but she felt she was justified in giving a little payback for the last couple of months.

"Knock it off! It's too early for this nonsense," Kogoro grumbled as he scooped some rice into his mouth. "We have to be at Endo-sensei's house in an hour."

The well-known mystery writer Ryouta Endo had invited the famous Sleeping Kogoro over to his house to discuss some of his cases. A journalist would also be there to record the meeting. Conan had told Ran his opinion that this was probably a publicity stunt to draw attention away from the lackluster sales figures of Endo's recently published novel.

"I don't see why we have to be there so damn early," Kogoro complained. "It's not going to make the article get published any faster! The man's just a glory hound who's terrified of falling out of the spotlight."

"Just like you, Uncle!" Conan piped up with a wide grin.

"What do you know, brat?"

Conan easily dodged the swipe that the older man made at him. He started gobbling his rice down and getting bits of it stuck to his face in the process.

"Dad!" Ran scolded as she knelt down to wipe the rice off Conan's face. She scowled a bit when she saw that he had somehow spilled soy sauce on his shirt. She had quickly realized that a lot of the extra laundry she'd had to do in the last few months was due to Conan's desire to act 'authentically' childish. Conan just stared at her with his wide, innocent eyes.

It had taken some adjustment at first to treat Shinichi like the little boy he appeared to be, but not as much as she thought it would. Maybe it was because the way she talked to and acted toward Conan was already ingrained in her, or maybe it was because she still couldn't help but think of Conan and Shinich as two different people. Every so often Ran would see Conan do or say something that was characteristically Shinichi, but the rest of the time it was difficult to see anyone other than the disguise.

In a way, Conan had become a real person and Ran would miss the bright-eyed and reckless child the day he would have to 'go home.' But that time was not coming any time soon. Ran rarely had a chance to talk to the Shinichi persona. He thought it would be best if he minimized any interaction with her as his true self to prevent confusion in how she would react in a stressful or urgent situation. The last thing either of them needed was for her to call out his real name when he was in danger.

Ran had agreed, but she had mixed feelings about the matter. On the one hand, Shinichi had never hesitated to act his true self in front of Professor Agasa or Heiji, sometimes right in front of her! Now she understood all the times that Conan would drag either of those two off to have what appeared to be serious and solemn conversations. But neither of them lived with him, and it was easier for them to keep the two identities separate.

Personally, she thought it would be harder for her to remember that Conan was Shinichi than the other way around. Shinichi had just been a voice on the phone for so long that even now when Conan did something Shinichi-ish it reminded her _of _Shinichi rather than that he _was _Shinichi. It was bizarre how she'd programmed herself to resist thinking of Conan as Shinichi in her effort to not go crazy. The last few weeks of investigation had weakened that habit, but it was still strong enough that she had to admit that Shinichi had a point about not messing with her natural reactions too much.

That didn't mean that nothing between them had changed. Conan was much more relaxed around her, and ironically, this actually improved his child disguise. Frankly, he had often overdone the 'I'm just a kid, heehee!' act. Conan sometimes acted more childish than most children! When he wasn't acting like a master detective at least twice his age. It was a wonder that nobody had ever called Conan out on his multiple personalities.

So Ran had taken it upon herself to give Conan a metaphorical kick when he was acting either unbelievably childish or too mature. The official reason was to help Shinichi be the best Conan he could be. The unofficial reason was that it was fun!

That didn't mean she wasn't taking things seriously. Shinichi had reluctantly told her that the people he was hiding from were the ones who had unintentionally turned him into a child. He said he was working on a way to turn himself back to normal and to catch the criminals (he reassured her that he wasn't doing either by himself), and he warned her to be careful around men wearing black. Unfortunately, Shinichi had been frustratingly vague about the nature of the threat he faced.

_Beware men wearing black? That's amazingly helpful! Not! Baka Shinichi!_

Ran hadn't protested as she had agreed to work with Shinichi on his terms, but she still thought it was a bad idea to operate on incomplete information. Nevertheless, some knowledge was better than none.

These were the thoughts that occupied her mind as the three of them drove over to Endo's house. They were greeted at the door by his assistant and granddaughter Hiromi Kaneda. She was a pretty woman with brownish hair who appeared to be in her early twenties. She took them to the living room which was quite spacious though sparsely furnished.

"Mouri-san! Welcome to my home. It is an honor to meet a famous detective like yourself. I have always believed that detectives and authors drink from the same well of creativity."

"No, I am the one who should be honored. You are the one with the truly creative mind. I have just been fortunate enough to have a few lucky deductions. Heh heh heh!" Kogoro said, chortling loudly and rubbing the back of his head with one hand.

Ran loved her father very much, but even she had to admit that modesty was utterly unconvincing on a man like Kogoro Mouri.

"It looks like you have a way with a way with words yourself, Mouri-san," Endo said giving Kogoro a friendly jab to the ribs with his elbow. Ryouta Endo was a rotund man in his seventies with white hair and thick mustache. He was wearing a plain brown kimono. His voice was very gravelly, and judging from the yellowness of his teeth and the smell of stale smoke emanating from him Ran guessed it was probably from decades of smoking.

Endo nodded his head toward a thin man who appeared to be in his late thirties scribbling in a notebook. Endo said, "This is Jiro Yamada from the local paper. Yamada-kun has interviewed me on several occasions in this very room. He has done such a good job that I knew that I wanted him here for this meeting."

"I'm a big fan of Endo-sensei's works and yours too, Mouri-san," Yamada said enthusiastically as he shook Kogoro's hand.

Endo said, "The photographer will be running late, but I think we can get started without him."

"Grandfather, here's the coffee you wanted," Kaneda said, coming into the room carrying a tray with a coffeepot, empty cups, a sugar shaker, and various other items on it. She looked a little miffed.

"Thank you, Hiromi-chan. Would you care to pour- oh."

Endo chuckled as Kaneda practically ran from the room. He said, "You'll have to forgive my granddaughter. She hates domestic tasks of any kind. I think it's because she's not good at them. My housekeeper Maria is out sick today, so Hiromi-chan is probably upset about having to make lunch and such."

"Young people simply have no manners these days," Kogoro said sagely, not seeing the glare that Ran was sending at him.

"Thank you, Jiro-kun," Endo said, accepting a cup of coffee from the journalist. After taking a big gulp, he said, "Let's get down to business, Mouri-san. I have some questions about one of your recent cases..."

The interview was just as boring as Ran feared it would be. It was also painful listening to her father try to explain how he solved the cases he actually didn't solve. Ran didn't know why her father insisted on dragging her and Conan to these things. She couldn't even talk to Conan out of fear of interrupting the interview.

It seemed that even Endo was feeling bored as he kept stopping every few minutes to give a yawn. After the tenth time he did this, he said, "I apologize, gentlemen. Old men like me don't sleep much to begin with, but I suppose I've been getting less than usual. It's a bit early, but I think we should break for lunch. I hope you understand that I won't be joining you. Let's start up again after I take a nap. Hiromi-chan! Could you bring me some bottled water?"

As Ran watched Endo slowly get to his feet and walk out of the room with the assistance of his granddaughter, she was struck by a heavy feeling of foreboding.

That feeling was validated an hour and a half later when she and the other occupants of the house stood staring in horror at the dead body of Ryouta Endo spread out on his bed. That horror had not faded by the time the police arrived at the scene. She had seen many dead bodies in her life, but the sight of someone who had the spark of life snuffed out of them like a candle always unnerved her. And Shinichi wondered why she was afraid of ghosts...

Ran suddenly felt small fingers wrap around her hand. She looked down and saw that Conan was looking up at her with a reassuring expression. He was gripping her hand like a small child seeking comfort, but she knew that she was the one drawing strength from this connection. She gently squeezed back and smiled.

"It gets to me too," Conan said quietly. "It's a little depressing to always be surrounded by so much death."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that, Conan-kun..."

Conan looked up at Ran with a questioning look.

"Have you been cursed by a witch and just haven't told me?"

Conan stared at her with a stunned expression.

"I'm just saying that this happens _a lot_..."

"Mouri-kun! I knew that I'd find you here, you grim reaper of doom!"

Apparently Inspector Megure shared the same opinion. Kogoro leaned back in surprise as the angry policeman came through the door and closed in on him. "Inspector Megure! I swear I didn't do anything! I'm just here for an interview!"

"Hmph!" the mustached man said with a glint of suspicion in his eyes before he turned to Takagi who had walked up behind him. "So what happened here?"

Takagi opened up his little police notebook before he said, "The deceased is the mystery author, Ryouta Endo, age 70. An opened pill bottle and a half-full water bottle was found on the nightstand. The cause of death is apparently an overdose of sleeping medication, but we'll have to wait for a blood analysis to confirm."

It was then time to interview the witnesses. Jiro Yamada went first. He explained that Endo had felt sleepy during the meeting, so he had gone to take a nap. The rest of them had taken an early lunch, but they had grown increasingly worried about the mystery writer's absence and had gathered at his bedroom door to wake him.

"We knocked and knocked but he didn't reply. The door was locked so we couldn't get in. Mouri-san asked Hiromi-chan for a key, but apparently Endo-sensei has the only key. Mouri-san's daughter had to break the door open. Then we piled in and discovered that Endo-sensei was dead! It was like one of sensei's mysteries!" Yamada said. The whole time he had been gesturing wildly and his fingers kept inching toward the pen in his shirt pocket.

"You seem awfully excited about this," Megure said severely.

Yamada seemed to suddenly realize how he was behaving. He chuckled nervously and said, "I'm sorry about what happened to Endo-sensei, but this is an amazing story. Assuming that he's been murdered, that means we have on our hands a real-life locked room mystery! It's not every day you get to see one of those."

Megure rolled his eyes. "If only you knew..."

"We haven't yet established if there's been any foul play," Kogoro said. "It could be an accident or even suicide."

Ran heard Conan give a distinct groan.

"What are you groaning about, brat?" Kogoro demanded. "The door is the old-fashioned kind that needs a key to lock or unlock from either side. And the only key is hanging from the key hook over the desk there! Nobody other than Endo-sensei could have locked the door!"

Conan didn't back down from the older detective's glare. He stared back just as harshly and said, "Don't you think it's strange for Endo-sensei to take some sleeping pills _after_ he already told us that he was sleepy and needed to take a nap?"

"So what are you suggesting? That somebody came into the room, forced Endo-sensei to swallow a few handfuls of sleeping pills, and then convinced him to lock the door after the culprit left? That's the most cooperative victim I've ever heard of!"

"Dad, I think Conan-kun has a point," Ran said, stepping in between the two. "Endo-sensei's actions seem a little odd."

"Odd or not, it's still impossible for anyone to-"

"Who was the last person to see Endo-sensei?" Megure interrupted, obviously impatient with the argument.

"That would be me," Hiromi Kaneda said. "I'm his granddaughter and his assistant. I took Grandfather to his room after he called me for help. He walked inside and I heard the door lock a moment later. Then I went back to the kitchen to finish cooking lunch."

A lunch that was rather over-seasoned, Ran thought to herself. Endo wasn't kidding when he said that his granddaughter wasn't good at doing domestic tasks.

"Was Endo-sensei in the habit of taking sleeping medication?" Takagi asked.

Kaneda shook her head. "He suffered from insomnia, but he didn't like the idea of taking medication. The doctor gave him a prescription in case he changed his mind, but as far as I know he never took any. He just left the bottle in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom down the hall."

Kogoro rubbed his chin in thought. "If that's the case, maybe he wasn't as sleepy as he thought he was. He got frustrated at not being able to fall asleep so in a moment of weakness he decided to take a few pills and took the wrong dosage-"

"Ah-re-re! What's this over here?" Conan cried as he picked something off the floor.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ran had to resist the urge to laugh. Shinichi had _never_ acted cute even when he had been a child originally, but Conan was just too adorable for words. She would have to remember to tell him so later.

"What did you find, Conan-kun?" Ran asked.

Conan handed her a fragment of glass. She felt it over carefully. The fragment looked like it had cut out of something rather than broken. But there weren't any glass objects around... Suddenly realizing what it was, Ran looked up.

"The skylight!"

Kogoro looked up with a puzzled expression. "What about it? Nobody could have climbed through that thing without shattering the glass! What the-"

It was a little difficult to see, but there was clearly a hole about the size of a 10 yen coin near the corner of the skylight window. It looked like it matched the round glass fragment in Ran's hand.

"This looks like it could be a murder case after all," Megure said grimly. "Takagi-kun, call forensics to come over."

"There should be a piece of string around here somewhere," Takagi muttered. "There's _always _a string or a rope or a cord involved when we have a locked room mystery."

Conan and Ran exchanged wry looks at that remark. When had their lives become a serial crime drama?

About two hours later, the crime scene investigators had finished scouring the scene. During that time, Ran had to go to the trouble of stopping Conan from running underfoot of the people checking the room. Or at least make a show of it. She and Shinichi had agreed that it would look suspicious if she suddenly just allowed him to have free reign to poke around corpses and question witnesses, so she had to at least pretend to prevent him from interfering with the police investigation.

"Ran-neechan, let me go!" Conan said as he tried to squirm his way out of Ran's grip. She had picked him up after it looked like he was finished talking to a member of the forensics team.

"No, Conan-kun! These people have a job to do and you're getting in their way," Ran said. She drew Conan up so his head was closer to her mouth, and she noted with amusement that his ears had turned red. She said quietly, "Have you solved the case?"

In a low voice, Conan replied, "I think so. I need Tome-san to confirm something for me, but after that we can finish up and go home."

"Remember to give dad a chance," Ran whispered before she set Conan down.

"I suppose with only two suspects this time, he has a 50/50 chance of getting it right," Conan muttered.

"_Conan-kun..._"

Conan looked a little irritated as he scampered off. He was probably remembering their recent argument about her father. Ran had felt that her father needed to be told _something _for all the reasons she felt that she should have been told. But Shinichi had countered that the older man's dislike of him (which would be amplified a hundredfold if he ever figured out the truth behind Sleeping Kogoro) and his concern over Ran's safety might lead to Conan being kicked out. Ran had naturally defended her father, but in the end she accepted Shinichi's decision because it was his secret to keep or reveal as he chose. Even if she felt like a huge hypocrite in doing so.

But she had managed to get a large concession out of Shinichi. Ran told Shinichi that her dad would never learn if he just put him to sleep at the drop of a hat. He needed to try harder to lead the grown detective to the correct conclusion himself. If he still kept getting it wrong _then _Conan could dart him.

Takagi cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. He then explained the conclusions of the forensics team. A quick analysis of Endo's blood revealed that there was a lethal concentration of zolpidem in it. There was nothing in the bottled water. There were no signs of forced entry on the door. The hole in the skylight had been made recently. And the only fingerprints on the room key were those of Ryouta Endo and Hiromi Kaneda.

Ran watched Conan's face as Takagi delivered his report. Conan's brow had furrowed and his demeanor had turned deadly serious. He looked rather intimidating. Ran thought that perhaps she should subtly do something to remind him of who he was supposed to be, but she was afraid of interrupting his thought process. She now realized that Conan tended to drop his disguise on these cases. It was probably because he had to devote all his brain power to solving the mystery. She had _seen _this behavior but she had never truly _observed _it.

Now that she was really looking at it, Conan looked extremely suspicious. She would have to work with him on that. Ran's attention drifted back to Takagi but not before she saw Conan quietly slip out of the room.

"I see," Kogoro said thoughtfully. "So the culprit could have forced Endo-sensei to take the pills perhaps by threatening him with a knife, wait for him to fall asleep, then taken the key to lock the door from the outside. Then he or she could have used a thread or string to lower the key back into the room onto the hook through the hole in the skylight that was prepared beforehand.

"The culprit would have to be aware that Endo-sensei was planning to take a nap around that time. That means it has to have been someone in this house who killed him. And it has to be someone who knew that he had a prescription for sleeping medication. That means the only person it could be is you... Kaneda-san!"

The young woman stumbled back, her face ashen. She said, "What are you saying? I would never-"

Kogoro shoved a finger in her face as he shouted, "You were the last person to see him alive! You could have used a knife from the kitchen to scare him into taking the pills. Since there are no signs of forced entry on the door, that means Endo-sensei let that person in. Which means he knew them. Naturally, he'd have no reason to be suspicious of his granddaughter. Not to mention that the only fingerprints on the key are Endo-sensei's and yours! You killed him, Kaneda-san!"

"Or maybe that's what the murderer wanted us to think, dad," Ran said.

Or as _Ran's voice _said. She hadn't said anything! Ran blinked in confusion as everyone's gaze turned toward her. This had to be Conan's doing. She heard the sound of her voice starting up again, and the only thing she could think to do was to move her lips and hope that nobody would notice that the words weren't matching up with the movements of her mouth.

Which probably wasn't likely considering that Sleeping Kogoro looked a hundred times more suspicious than she did and hardly anybody ever even commented on it.

"Isn't it strange?" Ran's voice asked. "The murderer dropped the bit of glass he cut out of the skylight into the room _and _left fingerprints on the key?"

"Ran-chan's right!" Takagi said, his eyes lighting up. "That _is _strange. If I was the culprit and I had accidentally dropped the glass bit, I'd have no choice but to wipe the key before lowering it onto the hook. I'd have to hope that the police rule Endo-sensei's death a suicide because then they wouldn't bother to have forensics come over and check the key. If, instead, they find the death suspicious then my ruse will probably be blown soon so it's better to make sure there's no evidence linking back to me."

"Hold on a moment. You're assuming that the culprit wasn't wearing gloves," Kogoro pointed out. "If she was then there's no need to wipe the key."

Takagi gave him an exasperated look. "If someone was wearing gloves then it wasn't Kaneda-san. It wouldn't make any sense for _her _to wear them and then still leave her prints on the key. It makes more sense that _someone else _wore gloves to hide their prints but leave hers intact."

"It's as if the culprit wanted us to suspect that this was a murder," Megure said with a low growl. "Someone is trying to frame Kaneda-san."

"Maybe that's what she wants us to think," Kogoro said stubbornly.

"That's a stupid risk to take!" Takagi cried. "It's much easier to just wipe the key to begin with-"

Megure interrupted the bickering. "Either way, we can't say that Kaneda-san is the only person who could have done this." He looked over at Yamada with accusing eyes.

Yamada held his hands in front of him as if to ward the inspector off. He said, "It's true that I've visited a few times so I know my way around the house, but I couldn't have done this! I went straight to the dining room with Mouri-san and the others and stayed there the whole time."

"That's true, Inspector," Kogoro acknowledged. "I was talking to him the entire time, and he never got up to leave once. He couldn't have done this. I think that we have to consider that Kaneda-san is playing some kind of reverse psychology trick on us."

Kaneda was shaking her head back and forth in apparent disbelief.

Megure looked uncomfortable with the situation. He said, "Kaneda-san, we can talk some more about this down at the station-"

"I think there's a simpler explanation than Kaneda-san playing a mind game," Ran's voice said. "This whole thing only makes sense if you assume that this is only an illusion of a sealed room."

"An illusion?" the three detectives said simultaneously.

"Yes, an illusion. The key never left this room. Endo-sensei locked the door himself after Hiromi left. He then put the key on the hook, put his bottled water on the nightstand, and then fell asleep on the bed. He either didn't notice the pill bottle that was already in the room or if he did notice he was too tired to care. When the full effects of the sleeping pills he ingested kicked in, he peacefully passed away."

"Wait, you're saying he fell asleep without taking any pills from the nightstand? Then how could he have died from a sleeping medicine overdose if he came here directly... from... the living... room..." Kogoro hit his hand with his fist in excitement. "The coffee!"

"That's right," Ran's voice said. "You found ziplodiem in his blood, but I bet that if you do a full autopsy you won't find any partially digested pills in his stomach. That's because he was killed by sleeping powder in his coffee. If you check the cups you should find some."

"That would take quite a bit of sleeping power," Takagi said with a skeptical tone. "Even the coffee wouldn't have completely masked the strange taste. Wouldn't Endo-sensei have noticed?"

Kogoro gave a short laugh. "He would have if he still had any sense of taste! That was the reason that lunch was so over-seasoned, wasn't it, Kaneda-san?"

The young woman had been standing with a look of fearful hope on her face. It took her a second to recognize that Kogoro was addressing her. She said, "Y-yes. Grandfather was a chain smoker. He gradually lost his sense of taste, so Maria and I had to heavily flavor his food for him to enjoy it."

"Even if he had noticed the weird taste, he wouldn't have wanted to insult his granddaughter's coffee," Ran said sadly. Then she realized that she was actually speaking. She looked around for Conan and saw that he was standing in the doorway along with Tome the forensic technician.

"Tome-san? Have you found something?" Megure asked.

"Yes, sir. As you'd asked, we've checked the cups in the kitchen sink for traces of zolpidem. The tests came back positive."

Megure looked startled. "As _I _asked-?"

Conan interrupted, "That means this isn't a sealed room at all! Endo-sensei was poisoned long before he came in here and fell asleep!"

"Then we're back where we started!" Yamada complained. Everyone turned to look at the journalist, who looked uncomfortable at the attention. He said hesitantly, "You're about to say that either Hiromi-chan or I put the powder in Endo-sensei's coffee, right?"

Kogoro smiled unpleasantly. "Actually, I was about to say that _you _were the one who poisoned him."

Yamada took a step back with shock on his face. He sputtered, "H-how can you say that?"

Kogoro put his face directly in front of Yamada's and sneered at him. He said, "Didn't Tome-san just say that he looked at the cups in the kitchen sick and found traces of the drug? Kaneda-san may be lousy at domestic tasks but wouldn't washing away the evidence be the first thought that occurs to her? Even if she never expected us to think of checking the cups because we'd think this was a locked room mystery, the prudent killer wouldn't take a stupid risk like that.

"Kaneda-san left the dirty cups for the housekeeper to take care of. But if you were the one... you had to stay with me in the dining room to establish your alibi, right? So you had no chance to destroy the evidence."

"That's your proof?" Yamada asked angrily. "That Kaneda-san didn't wash the cups? Th-that doesn't prove it was me!"

"You were the one who poured the coffee! If Kaneda-chan had put the powder in the coffeepot then it would have affected all of us. She couldn't have put it in the empty cups because it would have been noticeable. If it was in the sugar shaker or the cream then Tome-san would have said something. Tome-san?"

Tome shook his head.

Kogoro continued, "Only you could have drugged the coffee under the guise of pouring in sugar using sleight of hand. You knew with Endo-sensei's lack of taste that he wouldn't notice. For a man of his age and health, it wouldn't take much of the drug to eventually stop his heart."

"How could I have calculated the dosage so precisely?" Yamada challenged. "What if he had died right there in the living room?"

Kogoro easily brushed aside such weak objections. He said, "I'm willing to bet you weren't always a journalist. A quick look in your records will reveal if you have any kind of chemistry or pharmaceutical background so you might as well admit it now."

"I remember Yamada-san mentioning once that he dropped out of pharmacy school when he was younger," Kaneda said softly.

"So what? Where's your proof that I did it?" Yamada demanded, his eyes darting around the room wildly.

Like a lion knowing that its prey were too wounded to escape, Kogoro backed off and regarded Yamada with a smug look. He said, "As I said before, you were with me the whole time so you had no time to wash or change. There should still be traces of sleeping powder on your clothes and skin."

Yamada's defeated expression said it all.

Kogoro relentlessly continued. "You set up Endo-sensei's room beforehand with the hole in the skylight, which you used to lower the pill bottle onto the nightstand. You must have heard about his insomnia on a previous visit and rifled through his medicine cabinet. You purposely left a glass fragment on the floor to lead the police toward suspecting that Endo-sensei's death was from murder and that Kaneda-san was the murderer. You created the illusion of a sealed room so that you could honestly claim that you were nowhere near this room when sensei died. Have I missed anything?"

Yamada smiled ruefully. He said, "I suppose that I shouldn't expect anything less from the great Sleeping Kogoro. But I am disappointed that I didn't actually get to see the _sleeping _detective."

"So you admit to killing Endo-sensei?" Megure asked.

Yamada shrugged. "Yes, I did it. I'm a little disappointed that my trick didn't work out, but I guess it wouldn't be much of a mystery story without the requisite happy ending."

"Why?" Kaneda asked, tears streaming down her face. "Why did you kill Grandfather?"

"And why did you try to frame Kaneda-san?" Takagi added.

"I don't suppose any of you would understand what it's like to fail at everything you've ever tried. As Hiromi-chan said, I dropped out of pharmacy school when I was younger. Though it's probably more accurate to say that I was kicked out. I spent a few years as a freeter until an old friend took pity on me and gave me a job at the paper doing human interest stories. I've always been a good writer so the job was a good fit for me.

"But I wanted more. I loved mysteries, and I wanted to be covering crime scenes instead of the openings of recreation centers. After I met Endo-sensei, I thought I would be satisfied with publishing a mystery novel. So I wrote a book and asked sensei if he could look it over. He said that he would, but after that he kept saying that he was too busy to give me a response and that he hadn't gotten around to reading my manuscript yet.

"I was over for dinner three months ago to get some quotes for an article on Endo-sensei's newest book. I was just coming back from the bathroom when I heard Endo-sensei asking Hiromi-chan how he could tell me that my story wasn't any good. He thought the writing was fine and that with some practice I could come up with better characters and plot, but he didn't think I had the talent for creating believable, suspenseful mysteries. Hiromi-chan told him that he could soften those words and that he probably shouldn't tell me until after my article came out. I think you can guess that I wasn't happy at being played for a fool."

"So you did all this for such a stupid reason?" Kogoro asked angrily.

"Only partly. I'm not _that _self-centered. Endo-sensei was old-fashioned. He believed that writing ability came from innate talent and not from practice. We had a difference of opinion. Hiromi-chan was only doing her job as an assistant. I understood all that. But... I started wondering why I was working so hard to spread sensei's fame. Why was I always standing in the background making other people look good?"

Yamada wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. He said, "Then I started wondering if Endo-sensei was right about my ability to create a good mystery. I decided the best way was to create one under field test conditions. There could only be two ways it could end. I would either be known as the journalist that broke the story of Endo-sensei's death or I would be unmasked at his murderer. Either way I win."

"You _win_? This is not a game! A man is dead because of you!" Kogoro reached out his hand as if to shake some sense into the man but he quickly dropped it. Turning away, he said, his voice dripping with disgust and contempt, "Get this man out of my sight."

Ran watched Takagi handcuff Yamada. As the man was led past her, she found words bursting out of her. "Was this worth it? You had a good job and a possible future as an author. You threw all of that away for a headline. In a year, maybe less, nobody's going to remember or care who you are, but Kaneda-san will have to carry her grandfather's death around with her for the rest of her life. Is this really what you wanted?"

Yamada kept walking. The door closed behind him with a heavy thud.

Ran felt her father walk up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Ran..."

She wiped her eyes then said, "I'm sorry, dad. I don't know what came over me."

"You didn't say anything that I didn't want to."

Turning toward him, Ran said, "Congratulations on solving the case, dad."

Kogoro smiled slightly. "It's been awhile since I got to see the criminal get walked out. It reminds me of why I became a detective in the first place."

After the investigation was officially wrapped up, Ran found herself standing outside with Conan watching Endo's body get carried into the back of the ambulance.

"Thank you for helping my dad solve the case, Conan-kun."

Conan shrugged. He said, "I've been getting too dependent on my stun darts. Maybe you're right that this could do Uncle some good."

"There's just one more thing."

"What's that?"

Ran picked Conan up and swung him around. "You're such a cute child, Conan-kun!"

"Gah! I'm _not_ cute! Put me down!"

Ran just laughed. She allowed the euphoric feeling to wash the awfulness of the day away. She knew there would be other days like this. That was the price of being the friend of a detective. But she could live with seeing the depths that a human being could sink to out of rage and despair as long as she could see the heights that a truly brilliant and rational (but never cold) mind could reach. As long as Shinichi was beside her, in one form or another, she felt that she would be okay.

THE END... for now.

* * *

Author's Notes

1) I had not originally intended to write a full-on murder mystery in the epilogue, so I apologize for any holes or errors. As I don't have much experience in writing such, I focused on making the solution _sound _plausible. Sometimes I suspect Gosho Aoyoma does the same thing. ;)

2) Yes, this is the end of _The Mystery of Conan Edogawa. _I want to thank all my readers for sticking with me this far and/or giving me thoughtful, motivating reviews. I plan on writing a sequel once I get some new ideas for it. Suggestions are welcome.

3) As you may have noticed, Shinichi has not told Ran everything. He has had to admit that Conan is only an alias, but he's not going to tell her more than he has to! I've thought about it and realized that even in the select group of people who know his true identity, even fewer know _everything_ about the situation that he's in. Hell, Shinichi routinely hides things from _Ai, _the one person who should be updated on all information related to the Black Organization! So there are still secrets to be uncovered. There are consequences that stem from secrecy that may be positive or negative to be dealt with. There is still plenty in this universe to explore. But in the meantime, remember...

_There is only one truth!_


End file.
